South Africa could provoke Warner in a "tactical move"

Although the spat with Quinton de Kock was Warner's first big incident in recent times, the scale of his reaction to the South African suggested that he remains susceptible to a jibe. © Getty

South Africa could make the "tactical move" of trying to provoke David Warner into another outburst, but insist that they will not change their approach to the game in order to achieve it. Warner was this week hit with three demerit points and fined 75 per cent of his match fee by the ICC for his blowout in the Kingsmead stairwell, leaving him just one demerit point away from a ban.

While captain Faf du Plessis said that South Africa would continue to use body language rather than verbal language on the field - in contrast to Australia's approach - he admitted that there could be merit in trying to prod Warner.

"If you can entice someone to make a mistake to get them to miss the rest of the series, that's a tactical move," du Plessis said on Thursday (March 8). "When we came into the series and I looked at the demerit points, it was all in South Africa's side. Now that it's happened, it's possibly an angle we can look to get to. But it's more about your presence on the field than the stuff that comes out of your mouth."

Although the spat with Quinton de Kock was Warner's first big incident in recent times, the scale of his reaction to the South African suggested that he remains susceptible to a jibe. Warner's captain, Steve Smith, said his batsman was well aware of the dangers of another indiscretion.

"It's about just playing the game and going out and enjoying it," said Smith. "Davey plays really well when he's aggressive and he gets into a contest. He's got to have to be careful not to cross the line. He's not got any more chances before missing games. He's obviously aware of that and hopefully he can come out and play a good game of cricket."

Du Plessis and Rabada already had demerit points against their names leading into the series. While the captain has three on account of the 'Mintgate' saga in Australia as well as over-rate issues, Rabada has five. The fast bowler has already served a suspension in England last year after reaching four, and would be banned for two games if he reaches eight demerit points.

De Kock picked up one demerit point of his own after match referee Jeff Crowe found that he had also brought the game into disrepute in the stairwell incident. While South Africa did not appeal the level one charge in a hearing on Wednesday, they appealed unsuccessfully against the sanction. Nevertheless du Plessis felt that a point had been made.

"If you know Quinton's character, you know that he is a very quiet guy. He doesn't say a word. I struggle to get a word out of him on the field, so I know he is a very relaxed, laidback guy. The point leading up to that was a lot of stuff said to Quinton, and a lot of personal stuff. Once again, that line of where it gets personal can be talked about. But I thought he handled himself well in terms of all the stuff that was said to him as he walked off the field. Eventually he reached a point where he said, 'Enough is enough'. Any guy in the world, depending on how far you pushed him, eventually he's going to say something back. He said something back.

"It was for (the ICC) to understand that there's a lot of things that happened before that moment. I just wanted to get that point across and to see if they understand that that's the case. But according to them, your actions are still.. You need to be accountable for your actions, and that's fine."