Faf Du Plessis (L) captain of Proteas and Duanne Olivier (R) having a chat during day 2 of the 2nd Castle Lager Test match between South Africa and Sri Lanka at St George's Park on February 22, 2019 in Port Elizabeth, South Africa. (Photo by Isuru Sameera Peiris/Gallo Images)
Proteas captain Faf du Plessis said the batsmen and their mental softness were to blame for their shock series defeat to Sri Lanka, but denied that jamming the two-Test rubber into the final stages of their World Cup preparation had been distracting in any way.
Having lost the first Test in freakish fashion in Durban last week, South Africa were bundled out for just 222 and 128 (their lowest ever total at home against Sri Lanka) as the island nation swept to an eight-wicket victory and an astonishing 2-0 series triumph in Port Elizabeth on Saturday.
“We’ve produced poor batting through the series and there’s no excuse for it, it was a very good pitch here and a lot more runs should have been scored. I think mentally we were a bit soft, we gave our wickets away when Test cricket is all about fighting it out through the tough phases. Sri Lanka were just too good for us.
“A lot of the guys here are not in the ODI team and they’ve under-performed, I can’t know what they are thinking, but for me the World Cup was not in my mind at all, I was extremely motivated to do well here. And I didn’t hear any language in the changeroom about what’s happened in the past, about having to bat on difficult pitches previously. The past has no bearing, you have to adapt your technique and mindset to score runs on whatever conditions you get on the day,” Du Plessis said after the defeat at St George’s Park.
Du Plessis referred to the unknown quantity that the Sri Lankans were, the tourists arriving in some disarray with a new, interim captain, several senior players missing and a coach at war with his board and selectors, but added that the Proteas should have sorted that all out in the second Test.
“Sri Lanka had a lot of new faces and we were lacking footage of them, and a pair of guys we haven’t seen before [Vishwa Fernando & Kasun Rajitha] were the leading wicket-takers. But we didn’t play them well and we had one Test to look at them so we should have been much better against them here. We had a lead of 68 on the first innings but then we batted even worse in the second innings.
“It’s difficult to say what needs to be done. We have an experienced top-order, it would be a big call to replace guys like Dean Elgar and Hashim Amla because they’ve done well for a long time and one series does not make you a bad player. Two or three poor series, sure, but if it happens over a period of time, of course you would look at that, but you’ve got to allow players one bad series,” Du Plessis, who described the outcome as “my biggest low as captain”, said.
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