South African youngsters to attend spin bowling course in India

In an effort to groom youngsters for playing in sub-continent conditions, Cricket South Africa (CSA) will send a team of eight promising spinners and six batsmen for a week-long spin bowling course in Mumbai from Saturday. The CSA has been doing this since last few years, sending a group of youngsters to practice spin bowling in camps in either India or Sri Lanka.

“The programme has been one of the major features on the CSA HP Skills Programme and has been held annually either in India or Sri Lanka,” CSA High Performance Manager Vinnie Barnes said.

The eight selected spin bowlers are Bjorn Fortuin, Simon Harmer, George Linde, Keshav Maharaj, Tshepo Ntuli, Aaron Phangiso, Dane Piedt, and Prenelan Subrayen.

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Among the batsmen, Dane Vilas and Stiaan van Zyl have also been named for the camp. They were found struggling against the Indian spinners during the South Africa tour to India last year. The batsmen going on the course are Temba Bavuma, Reeza Hendricks, Smangaliso Nhlebela, Hector Ngobeni, Stiaan van Zyl, and Dane Vilas.

The group will be accompanied by CSA batting consultant HD Ackerman, and CSA spin bowling consultant Claude Henderson.

Players have credited their improvement to this camp before. “Simon Harmer, Dane Piedt, Prenalen Subrayen and Keshav Maharaj who have been on previous spin camps, have seen the benefits of working with top Indian spin coaches,” Barnes said.

“It has also become quite an important initiative to improve our batsmen’s techniques and game plans against spin. Temba Bavuma, Rilee Rossouw and Stiaan van Zyl are some of the batsmen who have credited their improvement of batting against spin to the spin camps (in the subcontinent),” Barnes added.