It's not just the pitches

01 December 2015 - 02:06 By Telford Vice in Delhi

Samit Dravid is nine but already there are signs that he is a brick from the wall. Or so his scores of 93 and 77 not out in a recent under-12 tournament would suggest. And why not, considering his father played 164 Tests for India in which he averaged 52.31.But it's not that simple. "I see my sons playing and they are always trying to play the shots AB does," Rahul Dravid said of Samit and his brother, Anvay.Dravid spoke before India clinched the Test series against SA in Nagpur on Friday, but that didn't stop the crowd from raising a now familiar chant when SA's players appeared on the field to shake hands with their opponents:"ABD! ABD! ABD..."AB de Villiers is the only player to have reached 50 twice in a series that has yet to bequeath a century. He has a series strike rate of 74.24 and he has hit 20 fours, or more than twice as many as any other SA batsman.So if De Villiers can bat properly on the poor pitches seen in the series, what's wrong with the rest of them?Again, things are not that simple. For one thing, De Villiers is the most innovative batsman of the age. For another, none of India's batsmen have reached 80 in the series. For still another, Bangalore was the closest to a decent surface the teams have seen.However, pitches can't be blamed entirely for those who offer no stroke and are bowled, like Hashim Amla and Faf du Plessis in Mohali. Or for those who gut out an average of 88 minutes and 69 balls per innings only to get out to a ragged stroke in four of five trips to the crease, as Dean Elgar has done. Or those who play for turn with every ball bowled and then miss the straight one, a fate that has befallen too many of the South Africans...

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