'Can't give up in India'

Coach Langeveldt making an instant impact

Charl Langeveldt has a fair bit experience of bowling in India, both as part of the South African team and as a member of the two Indian Premier League teams -- Kolkata Knight Riders and Royal Challengers Bangalore.

The former Proteas pacer, appointed the bowling coach of the team ahead of the tour to India, has worked on the mindset one should have as a bowler while bowling in India, and going by the results so far, the 40-year-old has managed to extract the best out of his charges.

“When you are bowling In India, you don’t give up,” he pointed out when asked about what was advice to bowlers. “You’re going to go for runs but the thing is always to compete here. It’s been a big thing for us this tour, we’ve been competing every single ball. Even if we’ve gone for six, we compete in the next ball. That’s all they can do but it’s not easy conditions to bowl in. The bowlers might say it’s important that we try and look forward to competing. If we do that every ball, there’s a good chance we’ll win the game,” he explained.

Assessing conditions and adapting quickly, Langeveldt felt, was the key to success. “If we assess the conditions quick enough, we don’t try and stick to death bowling, that is, bowling yorkers,” he began. “I always say to the guys that the guy who adapts quickly is normally the guy that is going to be successful on the day. There will be a game where you’ll need to bowl a few more yorkers. In training as well, the focus is on bowling everything, so you mix up your slower balls, your bouncers and your yorkers, because you never know you could come to a wicket in which bowling back of a length is not working, and you need to adapt,” he reasoned.

While the visiting attack has enjoyed the better of exchanges, Rohit Sharma has tormented them with two hundreds -- one in the first T20I and the other in the first ODI.

“At the moment, he’s been really batting well,” said Langeveldt when asked what SA has planned to stop him. “He bats well in conditions in India, he’s a great player. We thought about it. I think the first ten balls are important to him. If we can get him out in the first ten balls, I think that’s the way forward. He’s one of those players, once he gets a start, he normally kicks on.”