South Africa have started their 2-month tour of India in the best way possible, winning the T20s and the ODI series quite comfortably. But the real contest begins this Thursday with the first Test of the Mahatma Gandhi-Nelson Mandela Test series at Mohali. The Proteas are a confident bunch and have perhaps the most talented group of crickets in world cricket. Let’s learn a bit more about the South African players and discuss what can be expected from them in this series.
Hashim Amla (capt) – Amla takes over the captaincy for the Test series. You can expect him to be a very calm and collected in his captaincy, just as he is with his batting. He has a team of world class cricketers backing him up, so he really has a much easier task than his opposite number, Virat Kohli. Amla’s batting form hasn’t been great so far in this series, but he is a master Test batsman and will want to get his consistency back.
AB de Villiers – AB is the #1 cricketer in the world, the most destructive batsman and perhaps the most popular individual in world cricket. He is not only super talented, but also very humble, a true credit to his country and our sport. It was just amazing to see the Mumbai crowd chanting his name – a privilege only granted to the best Indian players. We expect to see more of the same in the Test series as well. AB is a phenomenon.
JP Duminy – Duminy is an important member of the South African side, he is a first rate middle order batsman and bowls decent off breaks as well. He should feature in the series provided he recovers from the injury which kept him out of the ODIs.
Faf du Plessis – Faf is a contemporary of his AB de Villiers but started off quite late in international cricket. Since then he has more than made up for it with his consistently brilliant performances. He is one of South Africa’s main batsman, along with AB de Villiers and Hashim Amla. He is in great form too.
Dean Elgar – Elgar is a young opening batsman who hasn’t done much in his career so far. He will hope to set that right in this series.
Dane Vilas – Vilas is a wicketkeeper-batsman who has been preferred to the talented but inconsistent Quinton de Kock. He must perform with both the gloves and the bat in this series, else he can be easily replaced by Quinton in the next Test series that South Africa play.
Temba Bavuma – Bavuma is the first black South African batsman. That is his only claim to fame so far as he hasn’t done much in international cricket. If given a chance he must take full advantage of it.
Stiaan van Zyl – van Zyl is a young opening batsman and a replacement for the great Graeme Smith who retired last year. He will look for a chance to impress.
Dale Steyn – Steyn is considered to be the best fast bowler of his generation. But he is getting on and has lost a bit of pace. We don’t think he will be as effective in this series as he would have been 2 or 3 years ago.
Morne Morkel – Morkel is another great South African fast bowler who has shared the new ball with Steyn for over a decade now. This is likely to be his last tour of India and he will be keen to make an impression.
Vernon Philander – Philander started off brilliantly, picking up wickets at a strike rate of 17 in his first year in Test cricket. But since then his strike rate has dropped to 37. We don’t expect him to make much of an impression in this series. We think he will be replaced soon by the much faster and younger Kagiso Rabada.
Kagiso Rabada – Rabada is the best thing to have happened to South African cricket in years. Just 20 years old, he is fast, furious and very effective. He is a sensational new find and we expect him to dominate world cricket just the way his role model Dale Steyn has.
Imran Tahir – Tahir is South Africa’s premier spin bowler and he will definitely play all the matches. Tahir is a very talented player and he will want to make the most of this opportunity to play on tracks helpful to spin bowlers like him.
Simon Harmer – Harmer is a young allrounder who bats in the middle order and bowls decent off spin. He should play if JP Duminy is injured.
Dane Piedt – Piedt is a young off spinner who has never played for his country as yet. We will hold off judgment on him as we haven’t really seen him play.
