Chennai: Confident that their tweakers are equipped to handle Indian wickets in the tri-series involving the hosts and Australia A, South Africa A captain Dean Elgar said that Proteas now boast of quality spinners, who have taken to international cricket like “duck to water”. South Africa begin their tri-series campaign in the lung opener against Australia A here on Thursday and Elgar is confident of his spin attack.
“If you look at the way cricket is played back home, the wickets are pretty hard and prepared for fast bowlers. In the past we had few spinners like Paul Harris and Paul Adams and those guys were pretty much containers for the side. It is easy in the sub-continent [for spinners] as it is conducive for slow bowling,” Elgar told reporters.
“Tournaments like this will encourage younger guys to learn the art and do well and put their hand up back home and try and learn to play on those wickets. Those were the days we had one or two spin bowlers in South Africa but now we have five or six back home and put up their hands and have taken to International cricket like a duck to water. It is huge as the game has changed and evolved now,” he added. India sweat out indoors ahead of warm-up tie against Sri Lanka Board’s XI
Elgar, who was part of the senior Test side that toured Bangladesh, believes the ‘A’ side is battle ready for the tri-series.
“Our preparation has been pretty good. We have lot of experienced guys in our wings. We do have lot of international players who had played T20 and one day cricket tours for South Africa. There are pretty match lot of fringe players. In the bowling unit we got pace bowlers and spinners,” he said.
On the MA Chiadambaram wicket, the captain said, “It looks quite a slow wicket from watching lot of the IPL games. I do not think it is going to change too much. Tomorrow is the decision making time and not today.”
Elgar talked highly of South Africa cricket and is confident the youngsters will leave their impression in this series.
“It is important for all players in the series to mark their stamp, achieving their goals. It is massive. South African cricket is going through lot of transformation and transition in all three formats. You see now that in our test side there are lot of new faces. One day cricket seems to have lot more new faces now. This series is very important,” he said. Jacques Kallis: Difficult to produce seam bowling all-rounders in Indian conditions
“We have been improving over the last three years. This trend is massive. This series is important for all three countries with the development of players,” he added.
Elgar said that his Bangladesh experience will certainly help him on Indian wickets.
“It is difficult because you have not been playing in these conditions. So, there is little bit of direction process that you have to figure. I am lucky that I had a brief preparation here now after coming from similar conditions in Bangladesh. It is always going to be a challenge.” Nathan Coulter-Nile: Australia A have the confidence with them for tri-series
“Back home during the training sessions they had played in almost similar pitches and the younger guys seem to be thriving on those challenges and they would be able to play with no fear factor now. Just because of the excitement and hunger to achieve they aspire to do well in any conditions now,” he said.
This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.
Strictly Necessary Cookies
Strictly Necessary Cookie should be enabled at all times so that we can save your preferences for cookie settings.
If you disable this cookie, we will not be able to save your preferences. This means that every time you visit this website you will need to enable or disable cookies again.