South Africa are not the favorites: Dale Steyn

South Africa's ace bowler Dale Steyn has insisted that the Proteas will depend mostly on their quicks – Steyn, Morne Morkel, Vernon Philander and Kagiso Rabada – to deliver the results and is confident of taking 20 wickets in a match among themselves.

The pacer said, "We will rely heavily on the quicks and every bowler knows what they need to do. We have some good spinners and everybody fills in to get 20 wickets between us."

Steyn is expecting slow wickets in the upcoming test series, but hoped to generate enough pace in the air to trouble the Indian batsman. The 32-year-old told reporters, "I think pace through the air is really important. With the wickets here on the slow side, batsmen are able to adjust to medium-pace bowling when it hits the deck.

"But sheer pace can push batsmen because it gives them a lot less time to adjust. And you have also to land the new ball in the right areas.

"It is really tough, I am not going to lie about that. But I love bowling in India.”

Steyn, who made his test debut back in 2004, has refused to bill South Africa as the favorites in the test series, but remains confident of putting up a good show. "I don't think we are the favourites. We are playing in India's back garden and it is going to be extremely difficult.

"But we come into the series with a lot of confidence and expectations of winning. We have come up with some good game plans. We are up for the challenge, that's for sure," he added.

Meanwhile, South African spinner Simon Harmer has said that their bowlers have quickly adjusted to the SG balls which will be used in the test series.

"The SG ball that we played with in the warm-up, which is the ball that will be using in the game, is a hell of a lot different to the kookabura ball. There are a few little things that we have worked on with the variations with the kookabura ball. Seam wise may be it would be slightly different, but we have adapted pretty quickly," Harmer was quoted as saying by Zee news.

Harmer said that the SG ball will be more helpful than the Kookabura ball, which becomes difficult to grip as it gets older. "Kookabura ball as it gets closer to 90 overs, the seam starts to disappear into the ball whereas SG ball starts to come out of it. Now for me, as a finger spinner that means I can grip the ball better later on into the game and I think sweat is going to play a big part with the reverse swinging ball. But in terms of actual seam, I think it is better than what the kookabura is," the 26-year-old added.