6 Reasons why Indian fans love the South African team

Indian cricket fans for some reasons feel a strong connection with South Africa and after India they also love to back and cheer for the Proteas. But dig deeper, and one would know about the fire that burns in the heart of every Indian cricket fan when their team fails to deliver the desired results.

Whenever India plays South Africa, fans come out in support of the Proteas too, in addition to their own team. They love watching batsmen like Hashim Amla, AB de Villiers, David Miller, Faf du Plessis and JP Duminy hit those big shots and their bowlers like Imran Tahir, Dale Steyn and Morne Morkel are in good form.

And of course, the likes of de Villiers and du Plessis diving all over the park and grabbing those breath-taking catches, is a sight to behold. When India made history at Nagpur on the fourth match of the series by defeating South Africa after 9 years undoubtedly they felt proud, but at the same time they felt bad for their second favourite team South Africa.

Here are the 6 Reasons why Indian fans love the South African team:

1. AB de Villiers:

The advent of the Indian Premier League helped Indian cricket fans know more about the ‘super-human’ and these brilliant abilities with the bat, which were earlier unheard of. He played many extraordinary knocks during his stint with Delhi Daredevils first, and then the Royal Challenges Bangalore. No wonder why the name doesn’t need an introduction for any Indian cricket fan.

His style of batting inspires little kids to bat like him. Recently Rahul Dravid shared some moments of his sons trying to play like de Villiers. When AB hit a six at Wankhede, the men raised their arms and air-worshipped the South African batsman with pretended bows. When de Villiers’ flew another ball into the stands for another six, the crowd roared in appreciation – not for South African victory but for cricketing skill. They wanted India to win, but more importantly, they wanted to see good cricket.