South Africa to get familiar conditions

NEW DELHI: Every time a team from outside South Asia comes to India for a series, the nature of pitches often becomes a talking point. So, there were no raised eyebrows on their first day of a nearly three-month long tour, when the curious senior members of the South African team -T20 captain Faf du Plessis, ODI captain AB de Villiers and coach Russell Domingo wasted little time in striding out to the playing surface for the T20 warm-up match against a young and inexperienced India 'A' side at the Air Force Sports Complex, Palam here on Monday. Domingo broke away from the trio to oversee the training of the team. De Villiers hung around for long, staring down at an unusually greenish Palam strip while Du Plessis went in for a game of football after a longish chat with his star batsman AB.De Villiers then padded up for a knock in the nets, and found the ball fizzing through and hitting his bat hard. In a departure from the past, the South Africans are being exposed to lively tracks first-up on a tour that is likely to see slow, dry and turning pitches as things warm up. "The nature of the pitches here at Palam has always been low and slow. But the preparations for this match began 15 days ago with BCCI curators overseeing the work. The authorities here have been asked to produce lively a pitch. The South Africans have been given pitches quite similar to what they get at home," an official close to the preparations told TOI.Even the local net bowlers, who train at the ground, were pleasantly surprised. "The ball is really fizzing through. This is quite new. Both the nets have a fair amount of grass covering," remarked one of the bowlers.The visitors will get a similar pitch in Dharamshala when the real action begins. Du Plessis said he found it strange that the first encounter of his team with Team India, albeit in a T20 International, will be staged in the high altitudes of Dharamshala. "Honestly, I was quite surprised to know that. It would be a nice pitch for us. When I played an IPL game there, the pitch had good pace and good bounce. We are certainly looking to make the most of it," said the skipper. India 'A' manager Ashish Kapoor too felt that the pitch for Tuesday's match had more grass than usual but hoped the three spinners Yuzvendra Chahal, Pawan Negi and Kuldeep Yadav would be able to extract enough out of it. "It (the pitch) has a lot of grass. Maybe it's there to hold the surface together. It should get low and slow," Kapoor said, not giving much importance to the track. The topic soon veered towards the IPL, given the big number of South Africans playing in the league. "Most of our players have a fairly good idea about the conditions having played in the IPL. That should help," was Domingo's observation which was soon followed by a curt assertion: "We are Africans. Nothing comes easy there with different people and culture. We are used to tough situations. And we are up for the challenges here." The Indian team often finds itself playing on rather easy-paced, flat tracks in warm-up games before being thrown into seaming and bouncing conditions during International matches when they tour oversees. In contrast, the South Africans will face an India 'A' team full of fresh faces. The Indians, who will be led by Mandeep Singh, went through their paces with an upcoming trainer Manish Jha watching closely.