We are left with a lot of mental scars, says skipper Faf du Plessis

Ranchi Humiliated by a ruthless India the South African team will go back with mental scars as skipper Faf du Plessis rued a lack of vision that impeded phasing out of their great players South Africa could not pose a fight against formidable India losing all the matches by heavy margins A tour like this reveals that theres a lot of mental scars that can happen and then obviously its difficult to come out of that hole Du Plessis said after they conceded their heaviest defeat to India in the third TestIts just a relentless ruthlessness the way they put big totals on the board every time The effect it has on you mentally as a batting lineup it takes a lot of energy and it takes a lot of toll and thats why you could see towards the end our batting was mentally weak You dont want to be mentally weakBlaming Cricket South Africa the visiting skipper further said the tour exposed the lack of planning as they did not think for future after greats like Hashim Amla and AB de Villiers retiredIt shows that our structures are not where they need to be The gap between domestic cricket and International cricket If you look back three or four years and if someone had the vision of saying in three or four years time there will be a lot of inexperienced guys A lot of 34 35 36 year olds could possible retire So what do you do to make sure you get yourself ready for when that time comesAnd possibly we are guilty of not planning or when these guys going at the same time And now youve got to replace not only one player but four or five of your best players Perhaps we couldve been a little bit smarter in our planning phase and the phasing out of the great players he said Barring their first innings in the opening Test in Vizag the Proteas never really troubled India in the threeTest series as their batting slumped in every matchAt Vizag Dean Elgar and Quinton de Kocks centuryplus partnership helped them post 431 in reply to Indias 502 for seven declared but in Pune and Ranchi they cut a sorry figure We played our best match in the first Test and the consistent pressure that was on us made us weaker every Test match that we played That therefore tells me that were not mentally strong enough as a team and that some work is required on that departmentHaving lost their last series in 2015 in spinfriendly conditions South Africa also got a big jolt as it was the Indian pace battery which came up trumps despite the absence of spearhead Jasprit Bumrah During the 2015 series Indian fast bowlers only picked up a total of eight wickets across the four Tests but this time Umesh Yadav finished the series with 11 wickets with an average of 1218 while Mohammed Shami took 13 at 1476 apieceThey were spoton I thought the way the Indian seamers showed us how to bowl The pace that they bowled the consistency that they bowled the skill that they showed outclassed us as a fast bowling attack There is learning for us in that when we playing the subcontinent that our style of bowling is not successful He further said they badly missed Dale SteynDu Plessis said it was a really a tough challenge for him to see through a smooth transition as the team lacks experience Weve had a very mature Test team for a while All guys who played 3040 Test matches and now you look in the dressing room and its 5 6 7 8 or 10 Test matches Asked about the way forward Du Plessis said they have to find the right people to build the sideIts a rebuilding phase You have to start identifying characters that will drive the team forward You look for personalities within a team that you see in 3456 years to come And then the process starts Its a tough place to start right at the beginning The process will probably take a little bit longer So for me our next journey now is trying to make sure that we get a lot stronger as a cricketing team mentally So if theres work that needs to be done in that department then so be itCatch up on all the latest sports news and updates hereAlso download the new midday Android and iOS apps to get latest updatesThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever