CHENNAI: The Indian team, led by Rohit Sharma, will begin their pursuit of winning their first ever Test series in South Africa on Tuesday. Eric Simons, who was the bowling coach of the South African team for the World Cup and is also the bowling consultant of Chennai Super Kings, spoke about Proteas’ strengths, role of R Ashwin and more. Excerpts:
On what to expect The Proteas team is confident, understands their own conditions and will play an exciting brand of cricket. India is a very strong side in all formats, but I still think it will be a closely fought series with the team who wins key moments being the eventual winners.
On key players for SA When you play a team like India, you cannot rely on individual players. All will have to contribute and make sure there are no holes for India to exploit. The opening partnership in any series is crucial and the Proteas opening partnership is going to have to lay solid foundations on which the middle order can build. But the key for me will be the bowling line up doing the business. Kagiso Rabada, Lungi Ngidi, Marco Jansen, Gerald Coetzee and Keshav Maharaj can be a formidable bowling line up if they fire on all cylinders.
On India’s pace attack I do think the IPL has played a big role but also a stated intention of those in charge of cricket development in India to develop a potent seam bowling attack. The Indian seamers are of the best in the world and the team is no longer overly reliant only on spin to win Test matches.
On what Ashwin offers Ashwin does not rely only on turning wickets to be effective, but also uses drift, bounce, variations and pace changes to take wickets. I would also expect the wickets, regardless of day one and two to have some spin in them at the back end of the tournament.
On plans to counter Rohit and Virat Kohli The Proteas can target the duo by targeting the entire line up. If they, others are not scoring runs, it just increases the pressure. But there are no weak links in the Indian line up. I would not expect the Proteas to be singularly focussed on Rohit and Virat.
On the conditions on offer The wickets generally do aid seam attacks more in South Africa than in India, but not only have the Indian batters become a lot better on quicker bouncy wickets, but also the Indian seam bowlers are very dangerous on wickets that assist them so I do not see a huge advantage for South Africa.
