Du Plessis led the side to a series victory in Australia
last month, as De Villiers sat out with an elbow injury. His decision to step
down confirms his attitude to put the team first," said Cricket South
Africa chief executive Haroon Lorgat.Du Plessis, 32, is also captain of the
Twenty20 side, and excelled as Test captain in Australia, despite being fined
for ball-tampering after the second Test.
Despite being the same age as fellow batsman De Villiers, he
did not make his Test debut until 2012, and has scored 2,029 runs in 32 Tests,
averaging 43.17.Following the squad's outstanding
performances in Australia, it
is clearly in the greater interests of the team that Faf du Plessis should be
confirmed as the permanent Test captained Plessis, 32, is also captain of the
Twenty20 side, and excelled as Test captain in Australia, despite being fined
for ball-tampering after the second Test.
Wicketkeeper-batsman De Villiers, who has scored 8,074 runs
in 106 Tests at an average of 50.46 since his debut in 2004, only captained the
Protease in two Tests after taking over from Hashim Amla during their series defeat
by England in January. He remains the one-day international captain, and is
targeting a return ahead of the ODI leg of Sri Lanka's tour of South Africa in
January.
The interests of the team must always outweigh
the interests of any individual, including me," he said. It was a
fantastic honor for me to be asked to captain the Test side but I have missed
two series and I am still in doubt for the upcoming series against Sri Lanka.
No comments:
Post a Comment