PUNE: South African captain
Faf du Plessis on Sunday said his team lagged behind the Indian team in experience by miles and that the senior pros including himself would have to step up to bridge the gap.
"I think it's purely a case of inexperience. In my time in Test cricket, looking at Test cricket in general, best Test teams are the teams with the most experience," du Plessis, 35, said.
"One-day cricket and T20 cricket are different, but when it comes to this Indian team ... there's a lot of experience in that dressing room, there's a lot of Test matches behind their names."
The 15-member Indian squad has played 598 Tests cumulatively (Shubhman Gill is yet to play a Test). They have a combined aggregate of 27,010 runs and 72 centuries. In bowling, they have 1,161 wickets with 54 five-wicket hauls.
South Africa's corresponding numbers (2 of their 16 players are yet to play a Test) are: 16,473 with 32 tons from 370 games and 554 wickets with 29 five-wicket hauls.
Ravichandran Ashwin alone has 27 five-wicket hauls.
Du Plessis said that the team were in their 'infant stage of rebuilding' and senior players like him,
Vernon Philander,
Quinton de Kock and
Dean Elgar would have to step up.
"We're at a stage where we've lost almost all of our experience. (Dale) Steyn, (Morne) Morkel, (Hashim) Amla and (AB) de Villiers all of them were seasoned campaigners. And now it's a new group of guys who've played only a handful of Test matches. You don't replace those guys overnight," he said.
Another aspect he mentioned was consistency.
"Consistency will be one of the things we have to work on. Maybe, we took one big step forward in the first Test and two steps behind in this. I thought we weren't even close to where we needed to be to try and compete," he said.