Gautam Gambhir, Quinton de Kock
Quinton de Kock. Getty Images

South Africa’s T20I skipper Quinton de Kock has stated that their team is preparing for the worst Indian pitches. de Kock had also earlier criticized the Indian pitches. South Africa had won the T20I and ODI series on 2015 tour but they were blown away in the Test series 3-0 by the strong Indian spin attack.

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Consequently, South Africa’s wicket-keeper batsman doesn’t want to lose sleep on the same. On the other hand, South Africa had a poor World Cup campaign as they could not qualify for the semifinals. Thus, the Proteas will look to make a stronger comeback when they will face India in the upcoming series.

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South Africa will have a tough task.

“From our side what we are going to do is to make sure that we prepare for the worst,” said De Kock. To be honest I don’t know what we are going to get. In T20s I don’t think it will spin that much because in the IPL they prepare pretty good wickets. But Test matches are a different story and it could end up turning on day one. It is more of a mental thing and not being caught up too much on whether it is spinning or not that is what it boils down to.”

Meanwhile, the Indian pitches had come under the scrutiny when South Africa had toured in 2015. The two Test matches at Mohali and Nagpur didn’t even last five days and the pitch from Nagpur had received a poor rating from the ICC.
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“The last time we were there guys didn’t really expect those type of surfaces but this time around we will have a little bit of head start about that” De Kock said. “We will keep our eyes open and make sure that we are a little bit better than last time. I am not sure if they are going to prepare similar or better wickets than the last time we were there.”

South Africa will begin their India tour with the first T20I to be played on 15th September at Dharamshala. The Test series will begin from 2nd October at Vishakhapatnam.

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Gautam Chauhan

Cricket is my first love. I want to be a Wordsmith. I want to weave magic with my words.