Doctoring pitches could cost South Africa Test series, says SA former coach

Apart from India's suicidal batting collapse during the recently-concluded Test series, one other thing that created headlines was South African pitches. While the Centurion pitch had even surprised the SA batsmen after Ravichandran Ashwin bossed the game with immense spin, with many even calling the pitch similar to Indian tracks, the Johannesburg track saw the game interrupted and delayed for its unpredictable nature, which was later deemed dangerous by many. 

"They tried doctoring pitches in the Tests and it was so close that South Africa almost lost the series. Such pitches won't help because India have a great pace attack. Even the spinners will get assistance from seam friendly juiced up pitches," Jennings said as quoted by PTI.

The ongoing series against India has seen many South African youngsters getting a chance to play, but Jennings sounded quite unhappy with this experimentation of the South African board and has raised questions over South Africa’s strategies for the 2019 World Cup.

"You have to field your best XI at all times and develop a winning culture. You have to take it match by match and series by series, and not look too ahead into the future," he added.

Jennings agreed to Benkenstein's views and admitted that there is no time to prepare a counter attack for the Indian duo.

"There is nothing to be done in such a short time period. If at this stage, you don't know how to play spin, you just have to live with you incompetence. What is important that you don't freeze up and start eating up deliveries, and then get out.

"The wrist spinners are very good. They can even play Test cricket because sometimes in overseas you can struggle to take 20 wickets. They are true IPL products. Thanks to IPL, the fear of playing international cricket has gone away from young Indian players.”

South Africa have also faced an immense shortage of experience in the ongoing ODI series. While AB de Villiers was sidelined with a finger injury for the first three games, it was followed by a fractured finger for skipper Faf du Plessis. Wicketkeeper-opener Quinton de Kock became the latest name to join the list with a bruised wrist.

"Aiden is captaincy material, indeed. I was the one who handed him the captaincy in the U-19 World Cup (2014). He has the right values and culture. But he is too young and very inexperienced in ODI cricket. You need players to become stable in their game before you hand leadership to them. Look at Kohli. He became captain only when he was a stable batsman," he said.