AB de Villiers must have had some pretty quiet games in his career: Peter Siddle

Australian speedster Peter Siddle has started playing the psychological games ahead of the Test series. South Africa are scheduled to play 3 Tests against Australia starting from November 3. The pacer has now come up with comments ahead of the tour. He remarked back against comments of Faf du Plessis. Recently, the South African captain had quoted that the Aussies would be scarred after the ODI whitewash. Siddle has a different opinion on this.

Beginning a war of words, Peter Siddle said that he sort of giggled after listening to those remarks from du Plessis. He rightly pointed that the side that lost 5-0 was an inexperienced side. He further added that the pressure of the visitors would be high. “That’s what I sort of giggled at. It’s a totally different side. They played an inexperienced (Australian) side over there in that one-day series,” Siddle quoted.

“They’re good comments but it puts more pressure on them … talking a big game puts more pressure on them,” he added. Commenting on AB de Villiers’ remarks on the Aussies in his recent release, Siddle had his own stand. AB had said that the Aussies sledged a lot when the Proteas last toured Australia. Siddle remarked that the sledging done in 2014 was pretty tame. They were certainly nowhere close to being very harsh and rude.

“No (it wasn’t any more heated than any other series) … he must never have been sledged before if that’s the case,” Siddle said. “We were pretty tame, I think, compared to probably past eras and past teams. He must have had some pretty quiet games in his career,” quoted Peter Siddle.

Also read – Australia will have scars the way we beat them: Faf du Plessis

The pacer also remarked that Kagiso Rabada might face a lot of heat down under. Rabada is being tipped to be a lethal weapon of the South African armoury on the tour. Citing the example of Steven Finn, he said that there have been such threats before. But the Aussie batsmen have often dominated such big names.

“It’ll be interesting to see how he goes over here in a big series. There will be a fair bit of pressure on him,” Siddle said. “In the past, other countries have brought out players like that — you sort of think of Steve Finn a few Ashes series ago when they brought him out,” he conceded.

Adding further, he said though these bowlers have been among the wickets, they have been taken away for heavy runs too. “He might have taken a few wickets but he did leak a lot of runs. There was a lot of pressure on him,” he added further. Siddle believes that Rabada will be in for something similar when Australia host South Africa next month.

“That’s the sort of thing that we could look to do to Rabada. It means the other bowlers have to come back and keep bowling spells,” quoted Peter Siddle. Australia have been bolstered by the return of Mitch Starc and Josh Hazlewood in the bowling department.