CRICKET NEWS - Proteas captain Faf du Plessis admitted that the decision to select Vernon Philander for the third test at the Oval was a gamble which backfired.
He was already unwell with a mystery viral infection 24 hours before the match started and continued to deteriorate once the game started and which South Africa went on to lose by 239 runs.
“Vern felt a bit nauseous the day before but the decision was to stick with him because, at 50-60 percent of his best, he’s better than most.”
The expectation was that he would get better and we hoped to bat first to give him an extra day to get better,” Du Plessis said.
“But we missed his overs on the first day and England scored 100 runs too many. With Vern not being there we struggled but also the back-up bowlers didn’t step up and perform as we would have liked,” Du Plessis said.
By the third day Philander’s condition had not improved as had been hoped.
“He was still not feeling better but we needed him to bowl. He’d been to hospital to get some fluids and energy back into the body. It is a test match, nobody is going to be feeling 100% all the time, you just have to look at Morne Morkel’s toes to see what fast bowlers have to go through,” added Du Plessis.
As for his own performance, which saw him trapped lbw without offering a shot in both innings, du Plessis was sanguine and disappointed in equal measure.
