cricket

Updated: Dec 02, 2018 08:29 IST

South Africa skipper Faf Du Plessis believes that India will be a tough opponent for hosts Australia, but he still backed the Aussies to win the upcoming Test series because of India’s disappointing record Down Under.

“I think India would perhaps be the most confident they’ve been coming here because they would see there’s an opportunity - (firstly) with the two main batters being out of the (Australia) side,” Du Plessis was quoted as saying by cricket.com.au. in reference to the ongoing suspensions being served by Steve Smith and David Warner.

The South Africa skipper believes that the main reason behind India’s stellar show against top teams at home is their spin attack but he added that this time, the pace attack will also be an asset for the visitors.

“They are extremely tough to beat at home because their pitches spin square and they’ve got unbelievable spinners, and a lot of them, so they can play three or four spinners and just bowl spin all day.

“But what I find with them now is, for the first time, they’ve got three or four seamers in their squad that can bowl 140(kph)-plus and are very good bowlers.

“Obviously when you come to conditions like South Africa, Australia, England, you need pace bowlers and in the past they might have had one or two, but now they’ve got three or four.

“It’s important, though, that their seam bowlers need to be fit.

“In England, they had two of those seam bowlers who were injured so I think if that happened, then Australia would be massive favourites.

“But if they come with a fully fit pace attack, I think it will be a fifty-fifty split.”

Despite believing that India will be a tough competition for the hosts, Du Plessis still backed Australia to win the series.

“It’s going to be an interesting Test series, and if Virat (Kohli) scores runs - and we know Virat always scores runs - India will do well. But I’d probably go with Australia, just in terms of history against India,” he said.