South Africa captain Faf du Plessis has recently been replaced by Quinton de Kock in the ODI team of South Africa as the captain. Under his captaincy, South Africa faced a crushing defeat in the four-Test series against England. On Monday, they lost the fourth and final Test at the Wanderers by 191 runs and also lost the series 1-3. Following that, he came under the scanner for both his poor batting form and captaincy. However, he said he would not make any decision emotionally.
“It feels like you’ve been pushing me that way in the last while,” Faf du Plessis said at the post-match press conference when he was asked if he would resign. “You don’t make decisions like that when you are emotional or disappointed. I know the results don’t look good. It shows you where we are in terms of confidence. It’s time off to get away from cricket and from all the noise, freshen up and then come back for the T20s.”
South Africa faced eight defeats in their last nine Tests. Moreover, Faf du Plessis didn’t have a great show with the bat against England as he returned with scores of 21, 20, 1, 19, 8, 36, 3 and 35 respectively throughout the series. Meanwhile, he admitted that they were outplayed by the Joe Root-led England. However, he felt they lacked in batting.
“I’m sitting here extremely disappointed and I know the coaching staff is disappointed and you guys and the fans should be disappointed, but every team goes through this,” he said. “Unfortunately, we’re at the stage where it is happening right now, but I have no doubt that in a year or two we will look back and this will be where it started for us.”
Although the batsmen failed to do well, bowlers showed a good performance. On his debut, Beuran Hendricks registered a five-wicket haul in the second innings which included Dominic Sibley, captain Joe Root and Ben Stokes. He returned with the figures of 15.3-2-64-5. Anrich Nortje also took a five-wicket haul in the first innings. South Africa will now play against England in the three-match ODI series which will begin from February 4.
