It’s vital to keep pressure on Pakistan batsmen – Faf du Plessis

The presence of both Vernon Philander and Mohammad Abbas, and confirmation that Duanne Olivier will keep his place, means there will only be increased pressure on the batsmen in the second Test between South Africa and Pakistan starting at Newlands on Thursday.

Proteas captain Faf du Plessis confirmed today that both Philander and Olivier will feature in his attack, meaning a tricky selection meeting in which the home side will therefore have to decide whether to leave out Dale Steyn, sole frontline spinner Keshav Maharaj or a batsman.

Philander’s record at Newlands – 49 wickets in nine Tests at a ridiculous average of 16.55 – means one cannot seriously consider not playing him, while Olivier took 11 wickets in a man-of-the-match display in the first Test in Centurion, good enough to change the Proteas’ recent policy of the fill-in bowler being left out when the injured man returns.

“Vernon Philander and Mohammad Abbas are both exceptional bowlers, they’re very similar, relentless, at you all day and that should be a good match-up. Duanne is going to play as well, that decision has been made. He plays the enforcer role which is important, he brings variety to our attack because Vernon, KG Rabada and Dale Steyn have got the skills.

“Duanne is the guy who can put the batsmen on the back foot, he’s around your head most of the time and he’s fit and can bowl long spells. So he’s a challenge, especially for sub-continent batsmen who don’t like the ball bouncing so high. Duanne bowled very well in the first Test, he blew them right out of the water and it would be foolish not to pick him again,” Du Plessis said at Newlands today.

While Abbas possesses similar strengths to Philander and has made a sensational start to his Test career with 61 wickets at 16.62 in his first 12 games, suggesting he is going to be a handful for the Proteas batsmen to contend with, Du Plessis said it was vital to keep the pressure on the Pakistan batsmen after their sensational second-innings collapse in the first Test.

Losing nine wickets in the final session of the second day cost Pakistan the match and that is the rate of mortality Du Plessis wants his bowlers to inflict again on the tourists’ batsmen.

“Test cricket is about being composed no matter what, about keeping cool even when the storm is there, and when you hear things about dressingroom arguments then you know that your cricket is doing the talking and you’ve got them under pressure. But Pakistan are always a dangerous team, historically they’ve blown a bit hot and cold, and we need to be aware of the comeback.

“We have to keep the pressure on them from the start. Their batting line-up showed that there are one or two things we can do to get through, so we want to make sure we keep that pressure on them. When you’re on tour, you want to gain some confidence but we’ve been pretty good at shutting that down. Taking nine wickets for 90 was very important because if they had got to 300 that would have been a huge confidence boost for them,” Du Plessis said.

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