Former South Africa captain Kepler Wessels praised India’s Yuzvendra Chahal and Kuldeep Yadav for their class performance during the One Day International series in South Africa. He feels they are the quality spinners and South Africa’s inability to play wrist spin cost them the series.
“They struggled because most of the (current) South African batsmen hadn’t played against wrist spinners very much. They were taken by surprise by the quality of spin and they hadn’t seen anything like that before,” Wessels said.
Also Read: Wessels fancies India's chances in World Cup 2019Virat Kohli and co. won the ODI series in South Africa for the first time and they did it in fine fashion by registering the triumph by a margin of 5-1 where both wrist spinners bowled beautifully. Orthodox leggie Chahal and Chinaman bowler Kuldeep shared 33 wickets between them and literally bamboozled the South African batsmen.
Wessels mentioned that he wasn’t surprised by India’s win in the series.
“I wasn’t surprised by India’s performance as I knew going into the One Day series (after Tests) they are going to be competitive and they are a good One Day team. South Africa had a depleted side and they lost players through injuries (in the series) and their play against spinners was not good enough. India was the better side,” said Wessels.
Former South Africa all-rounder Jacques Kallis had recently said that there weren’t enough world class leg spinners in South Africa and hence their batsmen found it difficult to play against Indian wrist spinners. Wessels agreed with Kallis’s views and quipped, “I agree with him and he is absolutely right.”
India lost the Test series by 2-1 before the commencement of the ODI series, where former players were blaming India for the lack of preparation time before the tour.
India will tour England and Australia later this year and Wessels feels India should get sufficient time prior to those tours and should play warm-up matches.
“They should definitely have some warm up matches in England because it takes some time to get used to the English conditions. In Australia also there will be additional bounce, so one or a few warm-up matches will be a good idea,” said the 60-year-old Wessels.
Also Read: Tendulkar praised Chahal and Kuldeep“They should have had a warm-up match in South Africa. I am not saying that would have impacted on them winning the series, but it would have helped them to get used to the conditions.”
India will next play three-match T20I series, which will commence from Sunday in Johannesburg.
