Lack of quality spinners in domestic circuit led to the debacle: Kallis

South Africa succumbed to its first ever series loss at home in two years. One of the main reasons for the downfall of the side was underperformance by the Proteas batsmen. The high-profile batting order failed miserably against the Indian wrist-spinners, Kuldeep Yadav and Yuzvendra Chahal. Barring the rain-curtailed fourth encounter, they looked clueless against the spin duo. They seemed to be lacking technique and experience against quality spin.

South Africa succumbed to its first ever series loss at home in two years. One of the main reasons for the downfall of the side was underperformance by the Proteas batsmen. The high-profile batting order failed miserably against the Indian wrist-spinners, Kuldeep Yadav and Yuzvendra Chahal. Barring the rain-curtailed fourth encounter, they looked clueless against the spin duo. They seemed to be lacking technique and experience against quality spin.

South African legend Jacques Kallis on Thursday said that the collapse happened because batsmen were not been able to read the spinners. He also elaborated that playing spin has been difficult for the team because Proteas batsmen have not been facing bowlers like Kuldeep and Chahal in the domestic circuit at all.

"It takes time to read good leg-break bowlers. We have to accept we don't have enough world class leg-spinners in our country. So, this is a learning curve for the youngsters in our team. Even we went through the same phase and we learnt with time," Kallis told PTI.

In the five one-dayers played so far, 30 times South African batsmen have succumbed to the spinners. Kallis, who scored more than 25,000 runs in international cricket and faced the likes Shane Warne and Anil Kumble at their prime with fair degree of success also mentioned that there is no one perfect technique to counter leggies.

"Experience is the key. There are basically two ways to read leg-break bowling. Either you pick up from wrists or wait for the ball to pitch. No two batsmen would employ the same technique. As one plays more international cricket, he would know what works best for him. Everyone devises their own mechanism to get out of trouble” he explained.

With seniors like AB de Villiers and Faf du Plessis and Quinton de Kock out with injuries, Kallis also felt that the team lacked depth in batting.

"Probably South Africa must have realised by now that they don't have much depth when senior cricketers get injured, They (CSA) need to look carefully about how they will expose youngsters to international cricket." said the 42-year-old.