‘Forth Test not a dead-rubber’
AB de Villiers crushed any notion the team considered the fourth and final Test against England as a dead-rubber.
|||Johannesurg - Proteas Test captain AB de Villiers crushed any notion the team considered the fourth and final Test of the series against England starting at SuperSport Park on Friday as a dead-rubber.
England bagged the series thanks to a crushing seven-wicket victory on the third day of the third Test at the Wanderers over the weekend.
“There are no dead-rubbers when it comes to Test cricket, the game has way too much tradition, culture, and history for us to just rock up and think it doesn’t mean anything,” De Villiers said on Thursday.
“It is a huge game, we’d hate to lose 3-0, I think 2-1 sounds a lot better, it would be great to win a Test, we haven’t won a Test in 12 months.
“We are rebuilding a bit and trying to find our feet, I think it is time to wake up a bit and start playing proper cricket.”
De Villiers said in retrospect South Africa may have erred in the strategy at the Wanderers where they went for an all-out pace attack.
Although the English were effective with a similar approach but their experienced attack kept the South African batting lineup honest with variation in their bowling.
Stiaan van Zyl, who seemed to have only one mode at the Wanderers – fast and furious – could make way for Kyle Abbott with a more controlled approach.
De Villiers intimated the team could see the return of a spin bowler with JP Duminy’s inclusion receiving a boost.
“You can say that we maybe got the balance a bit wrong in the last Test, a little bit desperate to get the result and make something happen,” De Villiers said.
“But we back the plans we had and unfortunately it didn’t pay off, we are maybe looking at more experience in the bowling attack, someone that can maybe hold up an end.
“A spinner is a great possibility at this ground, I believe a spinner has a role to play here, so yes we are looking forward to seeing the bowlers operate a bit.”
The likely inclusion of Stephen Cook as opener at the expense of Stiaan Viljoen could be the fist step in remedying the Proteas’ batting woes.
De Villiers admitted it may have been a mistake for South Africa to play at this level without the expertise of a specialist batting coach.
“I think we’ve been a bit naïve in believing we can just go on the way we have been, we need a bit of advice here and there not only just from a batting coach but maybe from a few other areas,” he said.
"Once again that will be discussed after the series. Batting coach is the first thing we’ve got to address and there are a few names that has already been thrown into the hat.”
De Villiers believed talk about the Proteas' demise had been exaggerated and expected a turnaround sooner rather than later.
"With our very nice run of four or five years of Test cricket just before that when Graeme Smith was captaining people talking exactly in the way about us," De Villiers said.
"I hope we can make that turn a bit quicker than people expect us to do, but I am very optimistic about our future I’ve seen a lot of talent come through the last while we ust need to get a bit of experience and smart heads involved."
Independent Media