South African skipper Faf du Plessis reckons that there was nothing wrong in demanding bouncy pitches in the recently concluded Test series against India as the visitors had never welcomed them with “green tracks” when the Proteas travel to India. The track at the Wanderers was criticized to be dangerous by several experts for the irregular bounce, which gave most of the batsmen a tough time in the middle.

The Virat Kohli and his men showed immense grit to bat on and managed to save their pride by a consolation win on the tricky surface. Talking about the same, Faf said, “Whether it’s one percent or five percent or ten percent – whatever you can you must try and get an advantage against the opposition. When we go to India, we certainly don’t play on flat, green tracks.”

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He further added, “And I assume that there would be a similar conversation happening there. For me, it’s just making sure that there’s a conversation happening with the management of our team and also the groundsman about the conditions that would be ideal for a Test series. This Test series we didn’t get that, and I can’t give you the reason for that.”

Du Plessis insisted that the Wanderers track wasn’t as lethal as it was deemed to be, he said, “I don’t think so (that it was dangerous on) days one and two. The only time I got a little bit concerned was when Dean got hit in the face. That’s when I got a little bit concerned about player safety. Even in Indian innings, there were quite a few guys that got hit on the fingers quite regularly. I think if you count the number of times guys got to hit it was much more than usual.”

Putting fuss over pitch aside, Du Plessis said the hosts were not up to the mark in the third Test and didn’t make good use of the opportunities that came their way during the four days. He said, “To be hard on ourselves, we weren’t on top of our game from the start. Even in the first innings, I thought the total that they got 189 or whatever it was probably 30 runs too many. I can remember Virat having 2-3 chances. So it all adds up. Even the second innings, they got 220 and they should have been 180. So the last innings we should have chased 160 or something like that.”

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Du Plessis credited Team India for exploiting the conditions better than the Proteas at Wanderers, he said, “The Indian bowlers are very successful in these conditions. So that’s something we’ve got to remember when we play them here next time, that why is it that they are successful here. Obviously, you could see that their bowlers were a real handful in this Test match. And credit to their batters, they put their hands up and put the runs on the board.”

The South African skipper said they would carry a lot of confidence from the series win to the ODI series starting on February 1. He said, “ODIs are a different set-up for guys. We take a lot of confidence from the series win against India. We think that’s something that’s very important for everyone to remember. Although as a team we are extremely disappointed (to lose this Test), we beat the no.1 Test team in the world.”