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Keshav Maharaj, South Africa’s prominent spinner, has stated that defeating India on their home turf presents a formidable challenge and serves as an excellent opportunity for the team to evaluate their capabilities. The winners of the World Test Championship (WTC) 2025 are striving to break a 15-year winless streak by securing a Test series victory against India away from home, a feat they last accomplished in 2010. Maharaj characterized the forthcoming tour as one of their most challenging and crucial tasks in recent times. The last time South Africa triumphed in a Test series in India was back in 2010, during a period that showcased Proteas greats like Dale Steyn and Jacques Kallis. As the two-match Test series is set to kick off on November 14, Maharaj conveyed his resolve to assist his team in recreating that historic success and achieving another remarkable away victory following their recent WTC achievement. The left-arm spinner also conveyed a powerful message to India, asserting that South Africa possesses the confidence to defy expectations and compete fiercely against the hosts in their own environment. "It's probably one of the toughest tours, if not the toughest tour in the Proteas calendar through various generations that have come. There's a real hunger and desire within the camp to obviously beat India in India," Maharaj said to ICC. He also discussed the pitch conditions that the Proteas anticipate facing in India, indicating that they are gearing up for surfaces that favor spin. By referencing the West Indies Tests from October, Maharaj mentioned that the team has learned valuable lessons from that series and is devising their strategies to effectively tackle the challenges presented by Indian conditions. "As a unit, we feel like it's one of our biggest tests. It will be a wonderful opportunity to grade ourselves, to see how far we've come. Slowly but surely, we started to conquer other parts of the sub-continent. And I feel like this is one assignment that we really, really want to take," Maharaj said. "I think it will be good wickets that deteriorate as the game goes on. I think if you watched a bit of the West Indies series, now that India played against the West Indies at home, it was good wickets that went, you know, almost to day four and five,” he added. In their previous two Test series in India, the visiting team observed the impressive performances of players such as R Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja, who excelled on these surfaces. Maharaj also mentioned that they intend to replicate their outstanding achievements from the series against Pakistan. “We are carrying a bit of momentum from Pakistan in that second Test, (where) we showed that regardless of the toss, we’re still going to fight and try to force the result in our way. “I think there’s a real precision about how we’ve gone about our business throughout this cycle so far, and in the previous cycle," he concluded. Also read| Watch: Rohit Sharma gatecrashes couple's wedding photoshoot, grooves to 'aaj mere yaar ki shaadi hai
