Proud' Faf du Plessis backs South Africa to build from 2015's 'tough lessons'

[Torrent Disney]

For a team that has lost a Test by a margin of more than 200 runs, South Africa seem unusually pleased with their performance against India in Visakhapatnam. Compare it to the way they played four years ago here, or even 15 months ago in Sri Lanka, and it's easy to understand why.

Before Visakhapatnam, South Africa had lost four of their last five Tests in India, including a 3-0 defeat in 2015. Two of those three losses in that series came inside three days, with only the Delhi Test going the distance. South Africa's batting line-up was befuddled by the conditions and opposition spinners as they looked a shadow of the outfit that won in Sri Lanka in 2014 and drew in India in 2010.

In Visakhapatnam, they went down fighting. They scored over 400 in the first innings, taking the match well into the fifth day. Two of their batsmen scored centuries, and even though they teetered on 70 for 8 in the second innings, they did not crash and burn until the penultimate session of the match. The overall assessment was to take "a lot of confidence" from their efforts and to pat themselves on the back for showing they had learnt lessons and improved from previous trips.