South Africa’s standout spinner Keshav Maharaj believes that beating India in their own backyard will be a wonderful challenge and an excellent opportunity for the squad to appraise itself. The World Test Championship (WTC) 2025 victors hope to end a 15-year drought by winning a Test series against India away from home, which they last did in 2010.
Keshav Maharaj highlighted the impending tour as one of their most challenging and important responsibilities in recent years.
South Africa’s last Test series victory in India was in 2010, at an era that included Proteas legends Dale Steyn and Jacques Kallis. With the two-match Test series slated to begin on November 14, Maharaj highlighted his desire to help his team repeat history and record another historic away victory following their recent WTC triumph. The left-arm spinner also sent a strong message to India, saying that South Africa is confident in its ability to overcome the odds and challenge the hosts in their own circumstances.
“It’s probably one of the toughest tours, if not the toughest tour in the Proteas calendar through various generations that have come. There’s a real hunger and desire within the camp to obviously beat India in India,” Maharaj said to ICC.
He also spoke about the pitch conditions the Proteas are expecting to encounter in India, suggesting that they are preparing for spin-friendly surfaces. Drawing parallels to the West Indies Tests held in October, Maharaj stated that the team has taken key lessons from that series and are planning their strategies accordingly to handle the challenges posed by Indian conditions.
“As a unit, we feel like it’s one of our biggest tests. It will be a wonderful opportunity to grade ourselves, to see how far we’ve come. Slowly but surely, we started to conquer other parts of the sub-continent. And I feel like this is one assignment that we really, really want to take,” Maharaj said.
“I think it will be good wickets that deteriorate as the game goes on. I think if you watched a bit of the West Indies series, now that India played against the West Indies at home, it was good wickets that went, you know, almost to day four and five,” he added.
Maharaj’s assessment of the wickets seems to hold merit, as reports suggest that the first Test at Eden Gardens is expected to feature a seamer-friendly surface for at least the first three days, offering minimal assistance to spinners early on. However, as the match progresses, spinners are likely to come into play in the latter half, with the pitch expected to wear down and provide more turn.
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