New Delhi, Dec 7 (Agencies) : The ‘deadbat’ strategy that South Africa have adopted to save the fourth and final Test against India has irked former West Indies batsman Brian Lara so much that he took to Twitter to criticize the Proteas saying he has an issue with this kind of approach.

The South African batsmen have resorted to block almost all the balls being bowled at them with determination. So much so that they are not even hitting the bad balls. On Day 4, South Africa scored only 72 runs from 72 overs. Their captain Hashim Amla created a world record for slowest batting in the history of Test cricket and put South Africa on road to create several other records. Amla got out this morning for 25 runs after playing 244 balls.

AB de Villiers, who is one of the most dominating batsman in world cricket at present, has also displayed the other side of his batting art and has been unusually defensive so far. De Villiers scored just 11 off 91 balls on Sunday.

This sort of an approach is a rarity in modern day cricket where teams look to attack and usually score at above four runs an over. The South African strategy – it is termed as Blockathon – has received backing of several experts who are calling it the pure form of Test cricket.

Lara felt that the slow approach adopted by South Africa to save the Test match will not help cricket in its aim of attracting more fans to the stadium even if day-night Tests were introduced on a major scale.

After the recent success in the debut day-night Test match held at Adelaide between Australia and New Zealand, a lot of positive talks have emerged with many in the cricket fraternity vouching for the Tests to be introduced in the day-night format.