Indian pacers need to step up alongside spinners to stop AB de Villiers

The likes of Ishant Sharma and Umesh Yadav need to show more support to the spinners in this regard.

India and South Africa face off in the third game of the four-match Mahatma Gandhi-Nelson Mandela Test series at the VCA Stadium in Jamtha, Nagpur on Wednesday, with India currently leading the series 1-0. The South Africans have not had much to rejoice about in the current Test series so far, barring the performances of their spinners as well as AB de Villiers‘s continuation of his destruction of the opposition bowlers, which he has successfully managed to carry over from the limited-overs fixtures. Amit Banerjee explains that India needs to get rid of de Villiers’ early in the following game in order to boost their chances of breaking South Africa’s unbeaten overseas Test streak. SCORECARD: India vs South Africa 2015, 3rd Test at Nagpur

South Africa have stamped their authority over the Indians by thwarting them in the Twenty20 International (T20I) and One-Day International (ODI) fixtures in the ongoing ‘Gandhi-Mandela’ series. After a string of good performances, their impeccable record of not having lost a Test series abroad for the last nine years is under threat as they trail India 0-1 in series currently four days away from its third game at Nagpur.

South Africa have several issues to deal with in that game. They need to get their bowling combination right, with Dale Steyn’s fitness still under question. A lot of their batsmen are yet to score big runs, especially the likes of Faf du Plessis and Hashim Amla, with the former exhibiting a terrific form in the ODI series. READ MORE: Marchant de Lange called up as cover for Dale Steyn for India vs South Africa 2015, 3rd Test at Nagpur

There is a major threat for the Indians from the Proteas ahead of the third Test, which is of course their charismatic, but an equally dangerous batsman, AB de Villiers. The South African ODI skipper is  perhaps the only batsman among the two teams to have remained equally destructive in all three formats so far (maybe the inclusion of Rohit Sharma in the third Test might make him the second). As the Indian spinners ran through the South African batting order, it was de Villiers who acted as the lifeline for the visitors to put up some fight. Who knows, had it not been for de Villiers, the matches would’ve been over within a couple of days.

De Villiers has handled the wiliest of deliveries from the duo of Ravindra Jadeja and Ravichandran Ashwin, who have taken a total of 24 wickets in three South African innings so far, with an ease. His half-centuries in the first two Tests (63 and 86) stand testament to that fact. However well they have bowled so far, they have not been able to contain de Villiers early in his innings, which could prove fatal later in the next couple of Tests. If allowed to progress unchecked, the South African champion could single-handedly guide his side to a series-levelling victory at Nagpur (which is not entirely impossible).

It is still unclear as to the kind of pitch that the VCA curator will prepare, but the Indians are likely to reinforce their pace attack, with skipper Virat Kohli likely to open the bowling with Ishant Sharma and local-boy Umesh Yadav. While the spinners have got rid of de Villiers so far in the series, it is important for the seamers to step up in this role and get the better of de Villiers. This is the ideal time for Ishant to exhibit the aggression that he had displayed in Sri Lanka earlier in August, as well as for Umesh to display the brilliance that he had recently for Vidarbha in the Ranji Trophy 2015-16. Thus, it is important for the pacers to step up and provide strong support to the spinners to stop the force that is de Villiers. Get rid of him, and half the battle is won (much like getting rid of Sachin Tendulkar in the 1990s).

(Amit Banerjee, a reporter at CricketCountry, takes keen interest in photography, travelling, technology, automobiles, food and, of course, cricket. He can be followed on Twitter via his handle @akb287)

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