South Africa's troubles against Indian wrist spinners intensify

The South African team is 3-0 down in the ODI series against India and are staring at the worst series defeat. It is a commendable effort by Team India to have the Proteas on the verge of losing a series in their own backyard. Furthermore, the hosts have been marred by injuries in this series. They lost the services of AB de Villiers, their captain Faf du Plessis and wicketkeeper Quinton de Kock.

Right through the three matches South Africa particularly struggled against the Indian wrist spinners and this has been one of the biggest reason for their downfall They are finding it hard to deal with Yuzvendra Chahal and Kuldeep Yadav and have no saviour to bail them out of this threat. However, the biggest positive for South Africa going into the fourth ODI is that their veteran batsman AB de Villiers is back in the squad.

An Indian leg-spinner called into the South African camp

Although South Africa called in five wrist spinners to bowl in the nets ahead of the third ODI, it didn’t prove of any use. They lost eight of their wickets to the wrist spin duo. The Indian spinners are causing some serious troubles to the batsmen and the management decided to call in a specialist Indian spinner in the nets ahead of fourth ODI.

Ajay Rajput, an Indian spinner who also played Ranji Trophy in 2013-14 was called in for help. Ajay is presently playing in the Johannesburg Premier league and is the highest wicket-taker among the spinners having claimed over 400 wickets already. He is primarily an off-spinner who also bowls good leg-spin.

“I was given a call by the Johannesburg Cricket Club chairman to come and bowl at the South African batsman,” said Ajay. “The South Africans feel Chahal and Kuldeep are bowling slower through the air, allowing the ball to drift and turn. So, I was asked to flight the ball and bowl as slow as possible to get familiar with the turn,” added the Jabalpur boy.

“The difference between here and India is the bounce. I used to get turn even back home but here I get that extra bounce, which just makes matter more difficult for batsmen,” he concluded.

However, the Wanderers pitch might not assist the spinners as much as in the first three ODIs which is another positive for the Proteas team.