“Wickets are going to be much more different when we will be touring to South Africa later this year,” says captain of India A team, Chetashwar Pujara. He finds that wickets are much more flat than what was expected but scenario will surely change when the Indian side will be coming to South Africa for Test and ODI series in just few months time.
Pujara is pleased with the performance of his team and is looking forward to the couple of matches that his team will play against South Africa A. Indian A managed to beat Australia A in the final of the tri-series by 50 runs and would be going into Test series with a great deal of confidence.
Pujara was quoted by Times of India saying, "I don't think the conditions will be the same when we come back. Wickets are quite flat out here at the moment and when we come in December, the conditions will be hugely different and we are aware about it. It's about getting used to the conditions, including the weather and other aspects of this game.”
Shikhar Dhawan was the star in the penultimate game of the series that India A played against South Africa A as he scored 248 runs off just 150 balls that he faced. In that match, more than 800 runs were scored and that’s where the cool-headed captain in Pujara came into the picture. He knew that flat wicket will also offer the Proteas an equal opportunity of scoring heaps of runs and to stop that, rotation of leading bowlers will be play a key role.
He was quoted by Deccan Chronicle saying, "The matches were quite high scoring and it was difficult for the bowlers to execute their plans. When you have 400 on the board and you still feel it is chase-able, it's a difficult job for the captain and for the bowlers, because at times what they want to do, it's not possible.”
He added, "But we stuck together, we realised the wicket was flat and we were bound to get hit but if you had plans you wanted to execute, you should continue trying that."
Pujara was happy that as a team they did well throughout the tournament but did mention Shikhar Dhawan who played that scintillating match-winning knock. Though, India A wasn’t up to a magnanimous target while they were in the finals as they were restricted to 243 which was far below their least total of 285 in four league games.
Pujara was quoted by DNA saying, "As a unit, we wanted to win this series. A couple of the league matches didn't go our way and those were quite close games. We lost two games against Australia and I thought we would have won at least one of them. Our batting unit did a really great job and that was our strength. In the final, the bowlers stood up and did the job for the team.”