Venue swaps for India’s Tests against West Indies and South Africa
The BCCI confirmed the switches in a statement while announcing a slew of changes for the 2024-25 home season.
South Africa captain Faf du Plessis expressed his disappointment by saying that South Africa’s win over Sri Lanka in the ongoing ICC Cricket World Cup “doesn’t mean much” as it came a little too late.
The Proteas on Friday registered a clinical nine-wicket win over Sri Lanka at the Riverside Ground Stadium in Chester-le-Street adding two consolatory points to their account.
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Overall, South Africa have 5 points (2 wins, 5 loss and a rain-washed match) from 8 matches and are already out of the race for the semi-finals.
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Put in to bat, Sri Lanka managed a modest 203, a target which the Proteas achieved without breaking a sweat with 76 balls to spare.
“Long time coming, yeah. It was a good game, we did ourselves justice with the talent we have in that dressing room. Set up by a good bowling performance,” du Plessis said in a post-match interview.
“Dwaine (Pretorius) was exceptional. We’ve been trying to get him into the XI, but it’s a balance thing. The nature of the wicket told me it needed to be straight lines with the ball, and that’s why I brought Dwaine and Andile on early.”
“Line and length were harder to face than pace on that wicket. (This win) feels bittersweet. It doesn’t feel like it means that much. It’s a little bit too late,” the skipper added.
Happy with the batsmen who finally came to perform after seven games in the competition, the Proteas skipper said: “But the basics of batting were shown today. We haven’t had guys batting through, and big partnerships, but that was not the case today. One big partnership, and suddenly everything seems so much easier”.
He also admitted the fact that the defeat to Bangladesh early in the tournament affected their confidence and they could not get over it.
“Bangladesh was the one that really took the wind out of our sails. England were too good for us on that day. Bangladesh really sucker-punched us in the stomach, and then we took that into the next game, the first week really set us back, but we can’t use that as an excuse,” concluded the 34-year-old.
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