Since its Test loss in the city four months ago in November 2015, South Africa would have kept a wary eye on the Nagpur pitch. Officials have ensured that the surface for the team's ICC World T20 2016
clash is a batting-friendly one, but it’s only on match-day on Friday
(March 25), that the true nature of the 22 yards will be known.
The switching of the pitches certainly took Faf du Plessis, the South Africa captain, by surprise. “When we got here, on the first day of practice the wicket was very dry and we just prepared ourselves accordingly to play on it,” said du Plessis on match eve. “Obviously it’s changed a bit now, we’re not playing on the same wicket. They’ve changed the strip. But whether it was changed or not, it wouldn’t have made too much difference to us. I assume the reason they’re changing it is to not be as dry, or not to spin as much as it possibly could have on that dry surface. But it’s still two teams competing and possibly going to be a spinning deck, so I don’t think too much will change.”
South Africa will be coming into this match after having played on a very flat Wankhede Stadium track. West Indies too played its first match at the Wankhede, but got a taste of more bowler-friendly conditions in its second match against Sri Lanka in Bangalore.
Du Plessis admitted that he had expected more batting-friendly tracks throughout the World Twenty20 venues, and was surprised at the amount of help bowlers had at various venues. “To be honest, I didn’t expect it to be like this. Obviously playing a lot of IPL cricket for years now, I’ve found that wickets in IPL have generally been quite good and consistent,” he offered. “Barring one or two games through the IPL, you generally get similar runs on the board right through all the venues. This World Cup, it’s been a little different. There’s been almost both extremes, where we’ve had massive spinning wickets and real flat decks. So that will obviously produce some different quality of cricket, but it’s not something I expected and certainly it’s not something I’m used to from these conditions. But as I said, as a team, it’s important that whatever the conditions, you have to be able to adapt. If you lose a game, you’re not going to get the game back by complaining about the wicket. You have to try and make do with what you get.”
One of the ways in which du Plessis said the South Africans will deal with surfaces that offer more is ‘smart’ cricket by the top order, and asking the lower order to step up on the batting front.
The switching of the pitches certainly took Faf du Plessis, the South Africa captain, by surprise. “When we got here, on the first day of practice the wicket was very dry and we just prepared ourselves accordingly to play on it,” said du Plessis on match eve. “Obviously it’s changed a bit now, we’re not playing on the same wicket. They’ve changed the strip. But whether it was changed or not, it wouldn’t have made too much difference to us. I assume the reason they’re changing it is to not be as dry, or not to spin as much as it possibly could have on that dry surface. But it’s still two teams competing and possibly going to be a spinning deck, so I don’t think too much will change.”
South Africa will be coming into this match after having played on a very flat Wankhede Stadium track. West Indies too played its first match at the Wankhede, but got a taste of more bowler-friendly conditions in its second match against Sri Lanka in Bangalore.
Du Plessis admitted that he had expected more batting-friendly tracks throughout the World Twenty20 venues, and was surprised at the amount of help bowlers had at various venues. “To be honest, I didn’t expect it to be like this. Obviously playing a lot of IPL cricket for years now, I’ve found that wickets in IPL have generally been quite good and consistent,” he offered. “Barring one or two games through the IPL, you generally get similar runs on the board right through all the venues. This World Cup, it’s been a little different. There’s been almost both extremes, where we’ve had massive spinning wickets and real flat decks. So that will obviously produce some different quality of cricket, but it’s not something I expected and certainly it’s not something I’m used to from these conditions. But as I said, as a team, it’s important that whatever the conditions, you have to be able to adapt. If you lose a game, you’re not going to get the game back by complaining about the wicket. You have to try and make do with what you get.”
One of the ways in which du Plessis said the South Africans will deal with surfaces that offer more is ‘smart’ cricket by the top order, and asking the lower order to step up on the batting front.
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