The IND vs SA Test series begins on November 14, and one of the biggest threats that the hosts will have to deal with is, their new-found, impressive spin attack, that just rocked the Pakistani team a few days back. Keshav Maharaj, Simon Harmer and Senuran Muthusamy together picked up 33 wickets in two Tests, which made a huge statement before the India series.
Best spin attack by South Africa ever?
While India will have the likes of Ravindra Jadeja, Kuldeep Yadav, Washington Sundar and Axar Patel, it would be fair to say that, it would be an even contest between both the teams. And now wonder, Proteas coach Shukri Conrad feels confident ahead of the encounter.
“This is not saying that we didn’t have good spinners in the past, but we certainly think we’ve got a better pack of spinners now in Keshav, Simon and Sen,” Conrad said. “It gives us a lot of confidence that if the conditions are helping spinners, then we feel that we’ve got the armoury to obviously challenge India in that respect as well. Most of your batsmen have experience playing on the Indian soil, most of them have played in IPL. But we’re quietly confident that we can make history of our own here in Eden Gardens and in India.”
Trouble calling for India?
The coach who took the SA team to the WTC win last year also assessed the pitch. He went on to say, that not only there will be spin on the Eden wicket, but pacers will get some help too. “My observation is that there will be something in it for the quick bowlers. It’s an early morning start. We practiced yesterday afternoon, late afternoon. We found that the ball started swinging. So there’s obviously, that might not be pitch related, but certainly overhead related,” he said.
“And definitely it will spin. The question is always how early in the match does it spin. So, I think it’s pretty much stock standard. What’s out there, we expect it to look like that. So, I don’t think there are any demons. There’s nothing that will surprise us, or will surprise us, I should say.”
