AB de Villiers 'very upset' there was no third Test in India-South Africa series

Cricket legend AB de Villiers is the latest to express dismay over the India vs South Africa Test series not having a third match. While South Africa won the opening Test at Centurion, India bounced back with a win at Cape Town to level the series 1-1. However, the lack of a third Test in the series restricted the teams from winning the series. It also robbed India of an opportunity to win their first Test series in South Africa.

Many experts including Ravi Shastri have slammed the scheduling and raised question marks over the future of Test cricket. AB de Villiers has now joined the narrative, saying that India, Australia and England will be playing a lot of Tests but for other teams to also play a large number of Test matches, “something will have to change”.

“I am very upset about the fact that we didn’t get a third Test,” he said on YouTube. Once again you got to blame T20 cricket around the world, the ICC, the scheduling. I don’t know who is there to blame. All I know is something is not right. If you want to see more Test cricket things are gonna have to change. There will be enough cricket between India and Australia and England, I can tell you that. But if you want to see all the teams in the world competing to see who is the best Test team in the world, something will have to change.”

On the Newlands pitch which produced the fastest Test, De Villiers said the trick was to take the attack to the bowlers and not get into a shell.

The second Test at Newlands was completed in just 642 balls (107 overs), the shortest in history. The pitch has come under a lot of criticism for varied bounce throughout the match.

“It (Cape Town) was a pretty stock-standard wicket in my opinion. I remember jumping around there on Day 1. If you can just get through the first session on Day 1, it gets easier. If you see the players who were playing their shots and not hanging around, they were the ones doing well,” ABD said.

“I remember Ben Stokes scoring a double hundred there. I myself scored some hundreds there. You can’t allow bowlers like Philander, Bumrah, Siraj, Rabada to keep bowling on off-stump.”