South Africa relieved to see a pitch that could last beyond three days

NEW DELHI: Tuesday was Day 65 of South Africa's current tour of India. Over two months later, the Proteas were still trying to simulate match conditions while practicing for what is essentially a dead rubber the final Test here at the Ferozeshah Kotla. They had their 54-year-old assistant coach Adrian Birrell, spin consultant Claude Henderson and even, a 43-year old hobby net bowler rolling their arm over to get the batsmen accustomed to the conditions expected at the Kotla.
The obvious question popped up. How is the South African team keeping itself motivated having already lost the series? “We are here to fight,” said Birrell, giving us an insight into their spirit and specifically, the points on how they would tackle the Indian spinners continued Birrell, “Henderson is throwing down left-arm spinners to get used to Ravindra Jadeja.
I am bowling leg-spinners on shorter pitch to simulate and there are others who are throwing down off-spinners. We have pushed the batting crease behind the stumps usually are to create that rough area. We are trying to do what we can to be as specific as possible.” Efforts aside, the South African plans also reflect how their decorated batting line-up is yet to come to terms to the test by spin. The results are certainly not something pundits would have expected on the two and a half month-long tour. But Birrell remains defiant.
“If you know Hashim (Amla, South Africa's Test skipper), he is very meticulous about preparations. We had done a lot of things before coming to India. We all followed him. Even India's batsmen have struggled. The difference has been in the quality of spin bowling. They were tight and we lacked experience,” he countered.
India's leg-spinner Amit Mishra, in an unusually blunt statement, declared the tourists are rattled and that's why their discussions are driven by the nature pitches. Pitches have hijacked the narrative. Birrell said that the team had no complaints but in the same breath, expressed a sense of relief when talking about a much harder Kotla pitch.
“In a worldwide scenario, there are a lot of Test matches finishing in three days. The recent day-night Test too finished early. Over the last two years, Test cricket has become more competitive maybe because of the T20 impact. We have no complaints about the pitches here. But this pitch definitely looks like would last longer than three days,” he said.
Batsmen Faf du Plessis, AB de Villiers, Hashim Amla and JP Duminy brushed their skills against spin.