Leaving with mental scars, Faf rues lack of planning

Ranchi, October 22

Humiliated by a ruthless India, the South African team will go back with “mental scars” as skipper Faf du Plessis rued a lack of vision that impeded phasing out of their great players. “A tour like this reveals that there's a lot of mental scars that can happen and then obviously it's difficult to come out of that hole,” Du Plessis said after they conceded their heaviest defeat to India in the third Test. 

“It's just a relentless, ruthlessness the way they put big totals on the board every time. The effect it has on you mentally as a batting line-up, it takes a lot of energy and it takes a lot of toll and that's why you could see towards the end our batting was mentally weak. You don't want to be mentally weak,” he said. 

Blaming Cricket South Africa, the visiting skipper further said the tour exposed the lack of planning as they did not think for future after greats like Hashim Amla and AB de Villiers retired. — PTI