From South Africa’s view point they are bound to come at the Lankans hard at the SSC wanting to preserve their new found impressive record away from home. Since August 2016 South Africa has lost only one (to England) of their last nine Test series both home and away.
“I thought in the first Test, we were quite off the boil in a lot of areas. We have been also a team that starts off late unfortunately. Then we start making better decisions. Hopefully we can do that in this Test match although we know it’s going to be tough but we are looking forward for the challenge,” said Du Plessis at the pre-match press conference.
“The record is something that we are proud of. It is never easy winning away from home. When you are coming to the sub-continent, drawing a series is as good as winning a series. It’s tough and that’s what the best teams do. We need to get to that number one position in Test cricket. In order to do that, we need to make sure we compete,” he said.
Du Plessis put down his batsmen’s downfall to spin at Galle for not trusting in their defence.
“I don’t think we are a team that plays spin badly. The thing that let us down in the first Test was that we didn’t trust our defence well enough. The important part of playing spin in Test cricket is trusting your defence,” said Du Plessis.
“Obviously, we need to try and put pressure back on the spinners as well with what you are doing. The guys worked really hard on their game plan and trying to be positive against spin, which is an element of playing spinners well. You have to also trust your defence so that’s two parts.
“That was the difference how Sri Lanka played spin and how we played spin especially Dimuth Karunaratne, who didn’t take too many risks. He just played with good defence. If you take him away, I think both teams struggled to play spin well. The scores prove that. There weren’t too many big scores. We take confidence with the fact that from our bowling point of view we did right things apart from that last hour of the first day. We need to try and correct those mistakes.
“The great thing about Sri Lanka’s spin bowlers is that they don’t give you too many bad balls. That was evident at how they bowled at us and how we bowled at them. Even though our spinners bowled well, consistency was not as same as Sri Lanka. Landing the ball and making the batsmen take risks. Their bowling was superb and it was on right areas and after some time you feel like taking a risk. For me if you can have two or three options in your game and rest of the time if you make sure your trust your defence that’s great. You need to see whether mentally you are tougher than the opposition. That is what we lacked in Galle,” he said
Du Plessis said that he expected spin to play a big part at the SSC as well but added, “Our weapon has always been pace and I am hoping that rain doesn’t play too much of a part in this Test match as I said post match in Galle. You don’t want to compete with a soft wet ball all the time. If it doesn’t rain, then we will have a dangerous weapon in our fast bowlers. Once again we have to make a call as to whether we are playing three seamers or two spinners.
“The wicket looks dry and sometimes there will be assistance for seam bowlers. For me the biggest worry from the first Test was our batting. So probably we will go with the extra batter. That will give us an idea as to how to balance the team.”
Dale Steyn is one wicket shy of becoming South Africa’s leading bowler in Test cricket. His tally currently stands at 421 equal with that of Shaun Pollock.
“I will give a kiss on the cheek when he breaks the record,” said Du Plessis.
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