South Africa's du Plessis says embarrassing defeat by India will leave 'mental scars'

South Africa’s cricket captain Faf du Plessis, after facing an embarrassing defeat at the hands of India, said it would leave "mental scars".

After they conceded their heaviest defeat to India in the third Test, du Plessis said: "A tour like this reveals that there's a lot of mental scars that can happen and then obviously it's difficult to come out of that hole."

Shahbaz Nadeem took the final two wickets in straight balls as India thrashed South Africa by an innings and 202 runs in the third Test on Tuesday to complete a 3-0 series sweep.

"You got to give credit to the Indian team. This is a really tough Indian team under Virat," he added. “It shows that our structures are not where they need to be. The gap between domestic and international cricket, if you look back three or four years and if someone had the vision of saying, in three of four years ‘time there will be a lot of inexperienced guys.

"A lot of 34,35,36-year-old could possibly retire. So what do you do to make sure you get yourself ready for when that time comes?

“The process will probably take a bit longer. So for me, our next journey now is trying to make sure that we get a lot stronger as a cricketing team mentally. " he said.

"It has been a really tough series for us but we need to ensure that when we tour again, we are better equipped. This is the toughest place to tour, the statistics say that."