Du Plessis eager to do well in PSL 6 despite ‘challenging’ weather

South Africa’s veteran batsman Faf Du Plessis, in an interview with Cricket Pakistan, expressed his eagerness to do well in the Habib Bank Limited (HBL) Pakistan Super League (PSL) seasons six despite the challenging weather offered by Abu Dhabi.

The 36-year-old, who will be representing Quetta Gladiators in the resumed leg of the HBL PSL season six, revealed that players were trying their best despite the challenges of quarantines.

“It [quarantine] is a challenge yes. But I suppose what is most important for us is to be able to play cricket. This is just what we need to do now in order to play cricket. There is still stuff that you can do yourself. An obvious challenge is that you have to be in your room the entire time and can’t access the training facilities or the gym. But now we can do some stuff in our room. It's not ideal but you can still manage to make sure you do as much as you can. That is all you can do,” Plessis said.

“Yeah it’s very hot. It is going to be quite straining when we play matches in this severe heat. What I am trying to do right now is to get some time out on the bicycle on the balcony, during the day to get used to the heat. Obviously I come from a winter now in South Africa. So it is just about getting your body used to the condition that you are going to face. You won’t get the same intensity as you do while playing a match but once again you try your best,” he added.

The former Proteas captain stated that it was disappointing to hit their stride just as the tournament was postponed but was optimistic about his performances heading into the resumed tournament.

“We finished well in the competition on that side. I think we played our best in the last match of the competition before it was called off. I suppose the challenge for us as a team is that we never played that perfect game. We either bowled well or we batted well. We need to put it together in both departments. Unfortunately the tournament stopped short which was when we started playing that good game. Now obviously there is a lot of change that has happened. A lot of teams have lost a lot of their players. So it is almost a new competition,” he said.

“What was disappointing for me was that I got a lot of starts in the three or four games I played there and as a batsman that is what you want. You want to get going and then you want to put in those big performances. The important thing for me during this quarantine period is to find some time for myself to get myself going again. That is the first part of the process. Then hope that there are some good performances in the rest of the competition,” he added.

Plessis believed that ample training time before the Indian Premier League (IPL) helped his performances during the postponed tournament.

“I have enjoyed the IPL this year and had some really good performances. It is just about getting myself back and getting going. Some middle time would be nice before we start playing some games. I think in a perfect world you would like to get that going. The benefit of the IPL this year was that we had around 10 days of training so we could put ourselves in the best position to perform. In the short time that I am here at the PSL, it is about maximising that game time or middle time,” he concluded.