Proteas coach: Series victory against India one of the best-ever

With India ranked as the No 1 Test side, considerably ahead of sixth-placed South Africa, the three-Test series that began on Boxing Day was not expected to go the way of the Proteas.

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As it turned out, the visitors claimed a comfortable victory in the opening Test, with Virat Kohli’s team dominating the majority of the match, and looked to be the vastly superior team.

In the aftermath of that defeat, the Proteas’ leading player Quinton de Kock made the shock announcement that he would be retiring with immediate effect from Test cricket, which was expected to further demoralise the home side.

Instead, the Proteas showed immense fighting spirit – led by Dean Elgar – to bounce back and claim a first-ever victory over India at the Wanderers in the second Test.

They then backed that up by holding their nerve to chase down a tricky second innings total and claim another seven-wicket win over India, and a famous 2-1 series triumph to boot on Friday.

Proteas left coach speechless

After the match, Mark Boucher said he was almost at a loss for words, but heaped praise on the performance of the team.

“A lot of people, including the media, had written us off after day one of the first Test,” the coach said. 

“To come back after losing the first day badly to then compete in the first Test, and then to win the second and third Tests … this Indian team is probably the best team in world cricket Test-wise at the moment.

“This is something that our boys certainly won’t take for granted… The whole Test series was hard-fought, good cricket.

“It must be up there with one of the best Test series to be played, certainly in South Africa.”

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