Cloud over Vernon Philander's availability for the final Test

South Africa’s hopes of squaring the series by winning the fourth and final Test match against England at The Old Trafford look bleak as pacer Vernon Philander is still uncertain to feature in the game starting on Friday. Philander, who suffered from viral infection during the 3rd Test at The Oval, is now affected by a tight back.

He was away for a decent part of the previous Test due illness but has now recovered from it but is currently suffering from back stiffness and is expected to undergo a fitness Test on Thursday afternoon (August 3). However, a decision over his availability for the game will be taken only on Friday morning ahead of the game after a reassessment.

However, the South African captain Faf du Plessis feels that Philander will be fit enough to play and says that they don’t want to take the risk by playing only three seamers if Philander is only 90% fit and be in a position where they have to deal with two pacers if one of the three couldn’t bowl.

Won’t take the risk

“Vernon at 100% fit means we can look at playing three seamers and play seven batters,” said Faf du Plessis in the Press conference ahead of the 4th Test. “Vernon at 90% doesn’t mean you can play three seamers because you don’t want to be in a position where you have a seamer break down and then you only have two, because that is basically the Test match over right there. The one occasion where we managed to pull a miracle off was in Australia (in Perth) with two seamers, but normally you can’t win a Test match with two bowlers. If he is not 100% fit, it’s important to look at having four seamers,” he added.

Du Plessis made it clear that they will be dropping Chris Morris for an extra batsman unless Philander is fully fit to play the game who failed with both bat and ball in the last Test. He might be replaced by Theunis de Bruyn or Duanne Olivier if they decided to field in with 4 seamers.