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Ahead of the first Test against South Africa at Kolkata's Eden Gardens, South African assistant coach Ryan Ten Doeschate said that keeping in mind the performance of Proteas spinners in Pakistan during the two-match Test series, the team has put in place plans to tackle spin, something which Men in Blue as a collective had struggled in Indian conditions over last few years.
The first Test between India and South Africa will take place at Eden Gardens from Friday onwards. While India is coming into the series with a 2-0 sweep against West Indies at home, South Africa is heading to Indian shores after a 1-1 draw against Pakistan, where their trio of spinners, Keshav Maharaj, Simon Harmer and Senuran Muthusamy picked up 33 out of 40 Pakistani wickets, all while averaging below 22 individually. Maharaj secured a nine-wicket haul, while Harmer got an innings four-wicket haul and an innings six-fer in both Tests respectively. Muthusamy, the 'Player of the Series', got an 11-wicket haul in the first Test, six scalps in the first innings and five in the second. India would be aiming to thwart this lethal spin threat and look back at the devastating whitewash series loss to New Zealand at home last year as a serious lesson, where Ajaz Patel (15 scalps), Mitchell Santner (13 scalps) and Glenn Phillips (8 wickets) took 36 out of 60 wickets combined and humiliated a star-studded Team India, consisting of Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli and Ravichandran Ashwin at their own backyard. This series started a retirement tour of sorts for these aforementioned legends, which concluded with a humiliating series loss in Australia, and this series proved to be the last series in India for these stalwarts. Speaking ahead of the match, Doeschate said, as quoted by ESPNCricinfo, "Most likely they will play three spinners, and it is a little bit like playing against a subcontinent team. You normally worry about the pace attack first [when you face South Africa]. And I am pretty sure they will go with two seamers and three spinners." "But that is also the challenge when you are playing in the subcontinent. It is something that, as a team, we need to get better at. We addressed it early on. We've come up short a few times, so it's a great challenge. Hopefully, we have learned from the New Zealand series. We have put some plans into place about how to play the spin. And you are right, it is going to be so important over these two games, particularly how well they did in Pakistan about four weeks ago," he concluded. 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, KolkataSecond Test - November 22-26, Guwahati. (ANI)
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