South Africa have some serious introspection to do before they face England at home at the end of the month.

SuperSport analysts Kepler Wessels, Eric Simons and Neil McKenzie gave their views on the second day’s play of the fourth Test between India and South Africa in New Delhi.

South Africa were bowled out for 121, 213 runs behind India’s first innings total of 334.

On the batting
Simons: ‘The team will have no excuses. They will be very disappointed with this performance. I’ll go back to when India were 139-6. I think that was the key moment where South Africa were in control and they needed to push home that advantage. When they didn’t, you sensed that the game was slipping away. You could see with some misfields this morning that the shoulders were dropping.
‘Is that a result of what we’ve seen now? Has the fight gone? It’s difficult to see how and why, but let’s give India credit, they bowled extremely well. Our batsmen will feel they let themselves down and certainly there was nothing in the wicket to affect that.’
Wessels: ‘What’s alarming me, and we need to be honest in this situation, is if we put things in perspective; yes, the pitch in Mohali was a bit excessive and the one in Nagpur even more so, but Bangalore, there was nothing wrong with that surface and not much wrong with this surface. Some of our batsmen are in dire straits here.
‘We look at Dean Elgar, although he scrapped quite well he has some issues with his technique, we’ve got some thinking to do around the other opening spot, Faf du Plessis is having his problems as well as JP Duminy and Hashim Amla. The only guy really playing well is AB de Villiers. Now we have a very series coming up against England so somehow, between now and then, that situation is going to have to turn itself around to avoid further disappointment.’

On selection
Wessels: ‘I think there is some issues around selection now. I think there is uncertainty about exactly how we are going to put a combination together for that first Test match in Durban which isn’t far away.’
McKenzie: ‘I don’t think there can be one-foot-on-the-plane-syndrome to be honest because there’s so many places up for grabs. There are only two or three guys who are dead certain of their places. In every department there is definitely some selection issue. It hasn’t been easy there [in India].’

Picture: Associated Press