SA coach Conrad confident of 'stopping' India as Kagiso Rabada hits nets

With his frontline pacers Kagiso Rabada and Lungi Ngidi hitting the nets ahead of the Boxing Day Test South Africa head coach Shukri Conrad on Saturday expressed confidence that India wont be able to breach their Final Frontier in the upcoming SA vs IND TestsRabada was rested from the white ball leg as he was nursing a heel niggle while Ngidi pulled out after sustaining a left ankle injury ahead of the T20IsOn Saturday afternoon though Rabada and Nigidi bowled full tilt at the centre training wicket of the Supersport Park and facing them was Dean Elgar who is playing in his last seriesThe Centurion track is a pacers dream although India did get the better of South Africa last time around The head coach would want his lethal weapons to fire on all cylindersThey will be fresh and firing Rabada and Ngidi I am always a firm believer of freshness said Conrad ahead of the teams training session Both are coming into the game without match time but the coach isnt overtly worriedIt would have been ideal had they got some mileage in the legs by playing firstclass matches but thats life You have got to find a way But I am not bothered that they will be undercooked for the gameKG Rabada and Lungi are still in the 15member squad and available for selection We will make that decision tomorrow Hopefully tomorrow morning we will have a full squad of 15 to select from the coach saidWill make it tough for IndiaThe 56yearold one in the long line of Proteas coaches without a big cricketing pedigree is aware that India havent won any Test series in eight attempts here starting from 1992However this is the first time that India are playing in a twomatch SA vs IND Tests series in this country Conrad expected it to be a lengthier oneI would be lying if I say we have not taken cognizance of that We know what history tells us If it was ever possible to make the series ever bigger then that makes it even bigger that India have never won a Test series here the former Transvaal firstclass cricketer saidWe certainly want to hold that proud record and make sure it doesnt happen He believes that his men can maintain that record of not losing a Test series in their own backyardAlso ReadYoung guns harbour big hopesIndia is the biggest series that we are going to play this year It has been dubbed as the final frontier back in India and we are going to do our best to make sure that they dont conquer the final frontierThere were 14 out of 15 members sweating it out and even former KKR and RCB allrounder David Wiese who plays international cricket for Namibia was seen bowling to Indias nemesis Keegan Peterson in the main netsYoung guns Gerald Coetzee and Nandre Burger were seen going flat out while Marco Jansen looked sharp Among top Indian batters over 31 years only Virat Kohli has an average of 50 in Test matches in South Africa over three tours and that statistic isnt lost on ConradIf there are top five in world cricket at the moment then Virat Kohli sits at number one That goes without saying that Virat is going to be a prized wicket wherever he plays in the world He will be a prized wicket even when he is 50India have got a quality batting lineup Rohit Sharma the young Shubman Gill and there is quality bursting through but we have a quality bowling lineupThe Dean Elgar questionDean Elgar will finish a good career at 86 Test matches which includes the upcoming two against India The former Proteas skipper who has 5146 runs with 13 hundreds and an average of just under 38 isnt exactly finding motivation to continue playing having played just four Tests in a single yearElgar will continue playing first class cricket though The only time the head coach looked a bit uncomfortable was while answering questions on local player Elgars retirementIt wasnt because we just had four Test matches and Dean decided to retire It was a conversation that Dean and I had The fact that we dont play a lot of Test matches is part of the reason that we arrived at the decision that we arrived atHowever he was surprised that South African media knew that he and Elgar had a conversation on the latters future The conversation and outcome have been exactly what Dean and I had discussed It was surprising to me that a certain journalist had the wind of it But no surprise to me that Dean has decided to retire against India the coach saidWith agency inputs