AB de Villiers drops his pearls of wisdom on the Cape Town surface

India pulled off a remarkable victory against South Africa in the second Test match, levelling the series after faltering in the opening match. However, there were quite a few remarks about the surface in Cape Town where analysts and experts had divided opinions after the match got over within just 107 overs and ended up as the shortest Test in cricket history.

In the growing list of opinions, the latest addition was that of RCB Hall of Famer AB de Villiers. De Villiers opined that the surface was pretty ‘stock-standard’ following which he gave a detailed explanation about how the surfaces should be rated.

Talking on his Youtube channel, de Villiers said, “It (Cape Town) was a pretty stock-standard wicket, in my opinion. I remember jumping around there on Day 1. If you can just get through the first session on Day 1, it gets easier. If you see the players playing their shots and not hanging around, they were doing well. I remember Ben Stokes scoring a double hundred there. I scored some hundreds there. You cannot allow bowlers like Vernon Philander, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Siraj, Kagiso Rabada to keep bowling on off-stump.”

De Villiers’ comments came after Indian skipper Rohit Sharma shared his thoughts on the surface and had said, “I mean, we saw what happened in this match, how the pitch played and stuff like that. I honestly don't mind playing on pitches like this. As long as everyone keeps their mouth shut in India and don't talk too much about Indian pitches, honestly.”

The former Protean batter also shed some light on the approach of match referees and said, “I think it's important that we stay neutral everywhere we go. Especially the match referees. You know, some of these match referees need to keep their eye on how they rate pitches. It's quite important. I still can't believe that the World Cup final pitch was rated below average. A batsman got a hundred there in the final. How can that be a poor pitch? So these are the things the ICC, the match referees, they need to look into and start rating pitches based on what they see, not based on the countries. I think that's quite important.”