Fast bowler Kagiso Rabada is understandably eager to improve on the Proteas’ previous tour of India, come next month’s three Tests in Visakhapatnam, Pune and Ranchi.

India and South Africa contested three T20Is, five ODIs and four Tests in 2015. The visitors won the T20I and ODI series, but suffered three heavy Test defeats.

‘That Test series was a bit of a shambles because those wickets were just terrible,’ said Rabada.

“If I could give an example‚ the first Test match it was 200 versus 200 in the first innings. If we batted first‚ it was going to be a different ball game because we ended up having to chase the game. We lost 3-0 and we were truly hammered.’

The 24-year-old Rabada also drew an example from July 2018’s tour of Sri Lanka, where the Proteas slipped to a 2-0 Test series whitewash.

‘On our recent tour to Sri Lanka‚ it was tricky conditions. There is a whole lot of talk about how to approach spin but we will see how it goes,’ added Rabada.

‘What helps is that there are guys who have played there in the past and I guess what you can do is to use what worked and what did not work during the Sri Lanka tour to have a base.’

In that series visiting captain Faf du Plessis reached the late 40s on a couple of occasions, but failed to graduate to a half-century and beyond.

‘When you go there for the first time it’s weird and you don’t know what to do. If you look at how Faf batted in Sri Lanka‚ he got good starts‚ which showed that he had played there and knew the conditions,’ concluded Rabada.

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