Faf du Plessis hopes for pacers to fire on Sri Lankan wickets

The pacers have been South Africa's biggest asset.

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Faf du Plessis
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Faf du Plessis of South Africa. (Photo by Sydney Seshibedi/Gallo Images/Getty Images)

Ahead of their arduous tour of Sri Lanka, Faf du Plessis has reinforced the Proteas’ chances of securing a victory in the Island nation. Although the Lankans have been in rather a terrible form of late, Dinesh Chandimal and his band of merry men seem to be a rather formidable force when it comes to playing at home.

While Du Plessis highlighted the fact that the visitors have a good chance of securing an unlikely series win, it is also clear that they will be banking on their pacers to make a good impact. With Dale Steyn returning from injury and Vernon Philander also making a return to the Test side, the personnel as far as South Africa is concerned is perhaps one of the best in the world. He also said that Rabada, one of the best in the world at the moment is expected to do well too.

“No matter what the conditions are, a big strength of our team will always be our fast bowlers, especially the personnel we have; [Dale] Steyn, Kagiso [Rabada] and Vernon [Philander] are all wicket-taking bowlers,” du Plessis said on Sunday. “Those three have proven they can do it in any conditions.

“Dale has got a fantastic record in the subcontinent and KG [Rabada] is gold. He will be able to do anything, and we’ve got Keshav [Maharaj]. If we want to and there’s an opportunity to, because the conditions are really bad, then we can look at a second spinner.”

Expecting tough conditions

Faf du Plessis also went on to add that the conditions would certainly pose a challenge with Sri Lanka predominantly being a place where the ball does indeed spin a great deal.  “I am expecting tough conditions,” he said. “I think Sri Lanka will look at it on paper and think we’ve got a better side on paper and I think they will try and make it as dry as possible and spin as much as possible.”

He added, “It will be a nice opportunity to test ourselves in tough conditions. There were a lot of lessons learned by us [in India]. You have to go through something like that to pick your game apart, start from scratch and look at how you get better.”

Laws need to be stricter for ball-tampering

Dinesh Chandimal has been accused of ball-tampering in the recently-concluded series against the Windies, but however, the sanctions levied were not to the extent of that on the likes of Steve Smith and David Warner. Du Plessis opened up on the same statement that the punishment should have been stricter.

“They have to (be stricter). It’s happening too often. They definitely need to do that as quickly as possible,” he said. “I know they met a while ago but it doesn’t look like anything has changed. It’s still the same rules and stuff, so they need to change that. The penalties need to be harsher for ball tampering.”

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