NAGPUR: South Africa’s fiery pace bowler Dale Steyn’s availability for the Test starting here against India on Wednesday remains uncertain due to his slow recovery from a groin strain that he suffered in the first Test which forced him to miss the Bangalore match.

With Kyle Abbott having already replaced the injured Vernon Philander, the tourists flew in fast bowler Marchant de Lange, who played the last of his two Tests way back in 2012, as cover for Steyn.

“At the moment we only have three fit seamers in Morne Morkel, Kagiso Rabada and Abbott,” said South African coach Russell Domingo.

“We want to be prepared in case one of the three breaks down.”

Domingo was, however, confident his team can turn the series around in Nagpur.

“We’ve done it before,” he said. “We know that we are still in the contest with two matches to play and the wickets are definitely going to produce results.

“We have a lot of inexperienced players who have not played in India before so hopefully they will have learnt a lot of lessons from these first two matches.”

India skipper Virat Kohli said the loss of four full playing days in the second Test had not affected either the morale or the momentum gained by his side.

“We are all in a very good space. I would like to give credit to the guys for staying in the zone,” Kohli said.

Published in Dawn, November 24th, 2015