Faf du Plessis all in for removing toss procedure in Test cricket

Faf du Plessis all in for removing toss procedure in Test cricket

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Faf du Plessis has thrown his weight behind the talks of doing away with the toss in Test cricket. According to him, the visiting team should be allowed to decide if they want to take up bowling or batting first rather than depending on the toss, which will make the game more balanced.

After South Africa clashed with Sri Lanka in Johannesburg last year and recently in Galle, the results have motivated the South African captain to be a staunch believer of doing away with the toss procedure. In Johannesburg, South Africa had managed to overwhelm Sri Lanka by an innings and 118 runs as the attack had four frontline bowlers. However, in Galle, Sri Lanka effectively subdued South Africa by 278 runs, guided by their spinners.

This kind of abrupt results made Faf du Plessis bring the long debate of doing away with the toss. According to him, the visiting team should be allowed to decide whether they want to bat or bowl first. Recently, South Africa has been talking about made-to-order pitches and New Zealand is considering forming very green tracks for Asian sides. That's why, the ICC contemplated to remove toss in Test cricket, but ended up keeping it.

“I'm a big fan of taking away the toss. I think even in South Africa you'll still prepare the conditions the way you prepare them now, but you just make sure that you bring some balance. In home conditions, teams will still win the majority of the games, but you still do even it out a little. I think over the last two or three years away-records have definitely gone down, and games are finishing a lot sooner than they used to,” said du Plessis.

“When I started playing Test cricket, 400s and 500s were happening quite regularly. So I'm not just speaking about subcontinent conditions. In South Africa games hardly reach the end of day four anymore. I think that's one of the ways you can make sure that balance is a little better,” he added.

As the issue of pitches comes up, where visiting teams find that the practice pitches are completely different from the pitches in which they play during the series, du Plessis' idea of doing away with toss comes in view. He believes such situations put the opposition at a huge disadvantage.

“We played a warm-up game in Colombo which was on a flat wicket - it didn't spin. So you have to give credit to Sri Lanka for doing that well. That's some learning in that to take when we're playing in South Africa. The nets that we've been playing in haven't been spinning at all. So we could have even come a month earlier but if you're practising on facilities that don't spin, you're not going to get what you get out there [in the Tests],” du Plessis said.

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