Spirited: Luus and Wolvaardt took the fight to the Indian camp.
| Photo Credit: JOTHI RAMALINGAM B
India coach Amol Muzumdar on Sunday ascribed Sneh Rana’s eight-wicket haul to her sense of belonging in the team. “After she won the match against Australia, she went and played the inter-zonals as well in the month of April. And before we came here to play the Test, she attended the bowlers’ camp at the NCA and was working on her bowling skills.
“So, I think the message is very clear to her that she is an integral part of this team, and she delivered at the right time in the morning. To pick up eight wickets, it’s a sensational performance,” Muzumdar said after the day’s play.
Following on, though, Proteas batters played spin impressively once again, as they did on day two, for their team to safely see the rest of the day through.
Speaking about his work with the team with respect to tackling spin, South Africa batting coach Baakier Abrahams said: “I think the first thing was really just around the mindset. Watched a lot of videos around people that have been successful in India and what tools they use. So, it was more about trying to transfer that information over to them.
“And then, it was really around the skillset required to be successful based on the successes of the previous batters. Then, it was just about them deciding on what their preferred options are and playing towards their strengths. That’s what you saw over the last few days. It’s something that’s only started recently. And I think the uptake in the information and how they implemented has been really good.”
Speaking about Sune Luus’ impressive batting, especially against spin, he said: “I think it’s been a bit of a journey with Sune. I did the ODI series as a consultant in Sri Lanka. She didn’t have the best series and was really hurt. So, she took a couple of weeks off from the game and just reflected. We spoke a lot about her why. Like, what’s the motivation? And she came up with some really strong information around that. And then, it was just ironing out one or two technical things. But the biggest shift has been the mindset.
“As you can see, she’s got a lot of tools in the bag and playing options. It was about freeing her up mentally to be able to do that, and have the mindset to play in a style that she’s comfortable with and encourage that.”