West Indies should discover a means to offset South Africa’s barrage of seamers when they are supposed to square the series from the next Test that begins on Friday, however they’re not likely to find much respite from the pitch in the Daren Sammy Cricket Ground at Saint Lucia.
The home side were skittled out to 97 and 162 from the very first Exam having been not able to deal with the speed and motion of those tourists’ bowlers to some valuable wicket.
But house seamer Kemar Roach claims that the steep learning curve with that game may be advantageous in the long term.
“I think that it’s great to have a pitch similar to this from the Caribbean so that we could prepare for international trips,” Roach told Bloomberg.
“The pitch awakened a great deal more than I’ve seen in a little while.
It reminds me of a wicket at Australia or likely South Africa, therefore it is all about us adapting.
It is all about taking on the battle and attempting to be as optimistic as we could.” Coach Phil Simmons had bemoaned his top order batting frailties following the defeat by an innings and 63 runs from the very first match.
It’s long been a problem and that the main reason West Indies have won just three of the 29 past Tests against South Africa.
“It is among those things we’ve been desperately attempting to operate on because in the event you return, a great deal of times once we win Test matches from top teams we’ve got great opening racks,” Simmons explained.
“It is disappointing because if you examine the previous seven Exam 100s scored by means of an opener, I believe they were scored by Kraigg (Brathwaite).
We’re attempting to work quite difficult on this.” South Africa will deliver back middle order batsman Temba Bavuma when he passes a late fitness Exam when he missed the first match with a cool issue.
That is very likely to be the sole change.
“We will need to attempt to replicate what occurred in the very first Test,” captain Dean Elgar stated.
“It was callous and clinical; our bowlers headed the bunch brightly and a great deal of senior players place up their hands.
“The wicket seems like we’ve had a little rain around the staircase so that it may be somewhat softer, but out of a bud cover standpoint it seems like the first Test.”