SA pacer’s salvo ahead of first Test on Wednesday
Johannesburg: South African pacer Morne Morkel on Monday fired the first salvo ahead of the two-match Test series, starting here December 18, stating that the young Indian batsmen will miss ‘Sachin Tendulkar’s patience’ in the middle and they should be prepared to face some hostile bowling from the home side.
Morkel said it would be interesting to see how the young Indian batsmen cope with the South African pace battery now that the likes of Tendulkar are not in the visiting team.
“Sachin was a batsman who could bat for a long time. And he put the bowlers and the opposition under pressure by batting for a long time. He was the rock for their batting. He could bat with the top-order and the middle order both,” said Morkel two days ahead of the first Test.
“These young Indian batsmen are quality players, but we can clearly see from the ODI series that they are attacking batsmen who like to come at the bowling. It will be interesting to see how they go about this,” he added.
Tendulkar retired from all forms of cricket after playing his 200th Test against the West Indies in Mumbai last month. His departure left a huge void in the Indian team and that will be most visible when the Test series begins.
“Like I said, they are all very quality guys. Rohit Sharma has been scoring runs off late and Cheteshwar Pujara can bat for time at number three. Even R Aswhin averages 40 at the back-end of their line-up. So we need to make use of the early morning conditions with the new ball. We need to be on the money from Wednesday itself, otherwise they can score quickly and at Wanderers, sometimes it can be a high scoring game,” he said.
Asked specifically if he left out Virat Kohli’s name on purpose and that South Africa might not consider him a threat, Morkel was non-committal at best.
“Virat has done well in Australia and scored some runs when India toured there last. He is a quality player. But he is obviously going to slot into Sachin’s role and he has got some big boots to fill. He can do it very well, don’t take me wrong, but it is going to be a testing time for him at number four,” Morkel said.
Though the Indian team management has made no official statements about who will bat at number four, Kohli has batted with Pujara in pairs at the open nets sessions on Friday and yesterday at Benoni. It could be an indicator, or not.
Even so, it will probably be a trial by fire given how the Wanderers’ pitches behave.Adapting to the conditions will be the key, considering the Indians have had negligible practice ahead of the series. (PTI)