Ready to play more Tests in winter: Faf du Plessis

Faf du Plessis, the stand-in South Africa Test skipper, has welcomed the possibility of playing more Tests in the winter following the conclusion of the Test series against New Zealand. Even though Cricket South Africa (CSA) has been reluctant to host Tests during the winter because of the nature of the surfaces, the experiment to play the two-Test series proved to be fairly successful as the home side won the series 1-0.

Not only was the wicket at Centurion in the second Test beautiful to play on, the match attracted decent crowds on all four days of the match. "We want to play Test matches at home as much as possible," du Plessis said on Wednesday (August 31). "So if that means we have to do it in the winter, we are all for it. Especially in Centurion.

"Everything about the field was really good. The weather was really good, the pitch played well and the outfield was beautiful."

Even though du Plessis conceded that the pitch didn't see reverse swing and spin, he still branded it a 'great Test wicket'. "You had all the different combinations and all the factors come into play," he said. "Day one, your seamers must play a big role, the wicket must move around and you must be tight as a batting unit. Day two and three must be good batting conditions and then day four and five must bring its different challenges.

"Maybe the only thing we didn't see in this match was spin on day four and five, and also, we didn't see reverse swing. It didn't happen because the outfield was beautiful, nice and lush, so those are the only things we didn't see."

If CSA decide to schedule more Tests at this time of the year in the future, the SuperSport Park at Centurion will put its hand up to play host, according to Titans CEO, Jacques Faul.

"It's like asking a kid if they want ice-cream," Faul said. "We would definitely do it again. We considered it a huge success.
 
"We would have liked to start on Friday but that was impossible because of the regulations about the number of days teams needs between Tests. Ideally, we would like to have it Friday to Tuesday."