Dane Vilas looks to make second chance count

After spending almost 80 overs in the field on their first full day of long-form cricket in India, the South Africans may not have minded a cooling cloudburst, but there is one player who hopes the skies remain clear for the next seven weeks.

"Hopefully there won't be any washouts," Dane Vilas, South Africa's Test wicketkeeper, said, referring to his debut match in Bangladesh during which four of the five days were rained out. "It was frustrating but if you'd said that was only my chance to play international cricket I'd have taken it. Hopefully I will get some game time now."

If Quinton de Kock continues to score runs in the domestic competition back home, Vilas' chances of becoming a Test regular get that much slimmer. That cannot be an easy burden to bring into what many cricketers call one of the toughest assignments of their career - an away series in India - so Vilas is doing his best to put it out of his mind.

"Quinny is a very good player and he has shown that in everything he has done and he has come back into some form but I am not focusing too much on that," Vilas said. "I just want to do a good job for the team and not look at that. There is depth in our squad and some depth back home. It's good to have that competition and it will only help the team."

The other department of South Africa's squad that remains unsettled is the spin section. Offspinner Simon Harmer is the incumbent, but in India, the strategy was to have reinforcements which resulted in the inclusion of both Dane Piedt and Imran Tahir for the Tests. In the end, only Tahir proved a real threat in the warm-up match and Vilas admitted the other two needed a bit of tweaking to their game plan on the day.

"We thought Dane and Simon were a little bit too straight in the morning and the pace that they were bowling wasn't quite working," Vilas said. "Claude Henderson had a chat to them and then I think they bowled a lot better when they came back. Their line was the key, they went a bit wider and on this pitch that helped them also also get a bit of extra bounce."

Harmer picked up two wickets at the end of the innings and Piedt one on a surface Vilas described as "not typically Indian". But neither stood out above the other. Naman Ojha could barely pick between them when asked which of the South African spinners he found challenging to face. "The offspinner," he said. When asked which offspinner his reply was, "I don't know the name but the one with the straight arm."

Given the recent crackdown on bowling actions, the other one may not be so keen on Ojha identifying him.

Overall, Ojha was impressed with South Africa's entire attack, who he scored 52 runs off. He said the bowlers were "all good," and his only advice to the Indian batsmen who will face them next week was to "see the ball and play, that's it."

That's the kind of simple advice Vilas is trying to follow as he grapples with the prospect that not only could this be the biggest series of his career, but the only one.

"You just look around at the squad - I am seen as specialist but we've got AB [de Villiers] who can keep wicket as well so if you are secure in your position and you think you are fine, it's not great for a team," he said. "Everyone wants to get into this team now and everyone wants to play against a good quality team like India."