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Du Plessis praises groundsman for quelling Herath’s threat
- Updated: December 30, 2016
As much as South Africa succeeded in scoring the runs and taking the wickets they needed to beat Sri Lanka, they also managed to make use of home advantage by blunting the opposition’s biggest threat. Unusually, the most spinner-friendly surface in the country offered little turn and barely deteriorated despite a severe dry spell in the lead-up to the match but that was all part of the South African plan to take Rangana Herath out of the game.
“The groundsman got it spot on,” Faf du Plessis said. “We asked him for a wicket that didn’t spin right through the innings – that moved around on the first innings and didn’t spin on day four and five. So it’s great wicket that he prepared.”
Adrian Carter, the St George’s Park groundsman, left a much thicker grass covering on than he normally does, in the hope the pitch would hold together for five days. As a result, the teams got what du Plessis called a “new-ball wicket,” where there was a little bit of movement on the first day, as Suranga Lakmal proved, but that became better for batting as the match went on. By the fourth and fifth day, it was still flat and South Africa’s attack had toil in the absence of any reverse swing.
But that was the devil they knew and chose, opting to make their lives more difficult with ball in hand because they did not want to take the chance of it becoming impossible when batting. “You can either choose a green wicket or one that’s good for batting and then it will spin later but against a team like this it’s important that you nullify their strengths, …
