Intro:

Faf du Plessis says containing the in-form and dangerous Chris Gayle is key for South Africa against the West Indies as the Proteas continued their preparations in Sydney on Wednesday.

Script:

SOUNDBITE: (English) Faf du Plessis, South Africa, (on the adverse reaction from fans back home after the loss to India)
"I can understand, we love our fans, they are very passionate. And if you lose like that you should get some criticism. If it was a close game it would have been a different thing. We are a side that pride ourselves, especially the last part, we haven't had a lot of games where..if we do lose a game we are in the battle till the end. You can't expect on the day that someone can beat you, but you certainly need to fight till the end. And it was put in that sense that we lost by that margin. Yes, it was a lot more difficult to bat in the second innings, but it wasn't a 160 all out wicket. So it was a poor performance, so the public has a right to feel like that. And then confidence wise you can look at it both ways. We look at it we played West Indies, we played really well against them, we can take confidence from that. We did bowl really well against Chris Gayle, he didn't score a lot of runs in the series, our plans worked. But we know he can be dangerous on the day and your plans have to be spot on because if he gets in he wins you a game on his own."

SOUNDBITE: (English) Faf du Plessis, South Africa, (on Chris Gayle and the threat he poses)
"He is a world class player, one of the best. I know his one-day stats are probably not as good as the T20 stats, but he is still a very dangerous player. On the day he gets in and scores runs, it is going to be quickly. So what he does he takes the match away from you. So from a tactical point of view it is very important for us to try and get him out early. But they, their whole batting line-up works like that, they got guys that just come in and play shots. And it's great you get opportunities to get wickets, but if you don't get the wickets, they can also get the runs quickly."