India will be up against a challenging South African bowling line up on the pacey track of Optus Stadium Perth. And pacer Kagiso Rabada has already thrown the gauntlet at India, saying “as a pace attack, we definitely back ourselves against any team to go out and do what we have to do on the day to try and get over the line.” Meanwhile, Batting coach Vikram Rathour is simply not bothered by the amount of fear factor that is being served in the media.
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In the pre-match press conference, he clearly mentioned that he is not bothered by the names in the opposition. When asked if staying in Perth for seven days, helped, he replied in the affirmative.
“Ji bilkul (absolutely). We will have the advantage of staying here for seven days. The idea was to come and acclimatize to conditions at Perth as we knew this is going to be a big game for us. And the battle that we had in our group….I don’t think pace bothers us that much.”
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“I am not really concerned yaar,” he said.
He further said that he hasn’t heard the Nortje press conference when a Pakistani journalist asked him to respond to the ‘challenge’ posed by the Proteas pacer. When pushed further, he said its good for South Africa to feel confident against India.
“I haven’t seen the PC, so I don’t know what challenge he has thrown.”
“Good, everybody should believe that.”
While it looks like any other modern cricket stadium devoid of WACA’s old world charm, what is similar to both grounds is spicy nature of its track and the good bounce on offer that could make life difficult for batters.
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In this backdrop, Rabada and Nortje, two of world’s most fearsome speed merchants are expected to pose some tough questions for Rohit Sharma, KL Rahul, Virat Kohli and Suryakumar Yadav.
While Rabada will bowl full and get the bowl to seam and swing at 145 clicks, expect Nortje to mix it up with either back of length or the hard lengths at 150 plus speed.
Speaking further, Rathour said playing the second game on this pitch will certainly help as it will help the management second guess the nature of the pitch.
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