Kolkata (West Bengal) [India], November 12 : South Africa spinner Keshav Maharaj acknowledged the difficulty of touring India, calling it "probably the toughest tour" on the Proteas calendar.
He also stated that the team is determined to overcome the challenge and clinch a rare series win on Indian soil.
With the golden generation of South Africa players now long gone, the next generation have shown their prowess of late and were highlighted by the inaugural success in the ICC World Test Championship Final against Australia at Lord's earlier this year.
The reigning champions continued their resurgence when splitting a pair of Test results against Pakistan last month to start the new World Test Championship cycle and now get set for their next big test when they travel to India for a two-match series commencing on Friday.
Tours to India haven't been greeted with much success for South Africa of late, and you have to go back to Nagpur in February of 2010 to find the most recent Test victory over India away from home, and that side featured a host of Proteas legends in the ilk of Graeme Smith, Hashim Amla, AB de Villiers, Jacques Kallis and Dale Steyn.
The current playing group have shown a strong determination in being able to replicate the great South African sides of the past, and veteran spinner Keshav Maharaj is confident the tide is turning and a Test victory in India can arrive during this tour.
"It's probably one of the toughest tours, if not the toughest tour, in the Proteas calendar through various generations that have come. There's a real hunger and desire within the camp to obviously beat India in India," Maharaj said, as quoted by ICC.
"As a unit, we feel like it's one of our biggest tests. Whenever someone needs to put their hand up, it's shared amongst the group wholeheartedly. It will be a wonderful opportunity to grade ourselves, to see how far we've come. Slowly but surely, we started to conquer other parts of the subcontinent. I feel like this is one assignment that we really, really want to take," the spinner added.
Maharaj collected nine wickets when winning the Player of the Match award during South Africa's most recent Test appearance in Pakistan, with fellow spinner Senuran Muthusamy named Player of the Series for his 11 scalps and 106 runs across the two red-ball contests.
The pair are expected to play a major role in the Proteas' plight in India alongside another spinner, Simon Harmer, although Maharaj believes the conditions his side will face this time on the subcontinent may have something in them for all different types of bowlers.
"I think it will be good wickets that deteriorate as the game goes on. I think if you watched a bit of the West Indies series, now that India played against the West Indies at home, it was good wickets that went, you know, almost to day four and five. I do believe that the narrative is changing in terms of getting wickets. You want to give yourself the best chance when you're in home conditions, so maybe it's felt that let's play on good cricket wickets and let the game deteriorate as it goes on," the 35-year-old noted.
"But, in regard to us, I think there's a real preciseness about how we've gone about our business throughout this cycle so far and in the previous cycle in the subcontinent. Just focusing on those things and focusing on the skills that we do really well as a unit. I think partnerships have been a big one for us; whether it be bowling or batting partnerships, it's important," he added.
India Test squad: Shubman Gill (c), Rishabh Pant, Yashasvi Jaiswal, KL Rahul, Sai Sudharsan, Devdutt Padikkal, Dhruv Jurel, Ravindra Jadeja, Washington Sundar, Jasprit Bumrah, Axar Patel, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Mohammed Siraj, Kuldeep Yadav, Akash Deep.
South Africa squad: Temba Bavuma (c), Corbin Bosch, Dewald Brevis, Tony de Zorzi, Zubayr Hamza, Simon Harmer, Marco Jansen, Keshav Maharaj, Aiden Markram, Wiaan Mulder, Senuran Muthusamy, Kagiso Rabada, Ryan Rickelton, Tristan Stubbs and Kyle Verreynne.
Series schedule:
First Test - November 14-18, Kolkata.
Second Test - November 22-26, Guwahati.
Disclaimer: This post has been auto-published from an agency feed without any modifications to the text and has not been reviewed by an editor
