Miserable SA Tour || Indian Cricket

Losing away test series by a comparatively weak team of South Africa and then facing whitewash from the same team in the ODI series. That’s what happened with ICT where we lost 2-1 in in the Freedom test series and then 3-0 in the ODI’s. This was only the 5th time that India had been whitewashed in the white ball series. Numbers themselves speak the present position of a team which last year claimed that they have the capability and resources to play as 2 different teams simultaneously and even winning on the foreign pitches is now struggling to win a match with a full-strength side excluding Rohit Sharma.

On 31st Dec,2021 the whole team was on the 7th cloud when we won the first test match and more over, we won for the first time in Centurion. So, this time was seen as the best opportunity to win a test series in South Africa but we were not able to because of the simple fact that the Proteas played and understood the conditions better than us and completely outshone us in the series. And following this Virat Kohli dropped another bombshell and shook the Indian Cricket by stepping down as the test captain and ever since then things are looking completely unsettled in the team.

This incident is seen as the vicissitude for the ICT and what further added salt to the wound was that Rohit Sharma, the newly appointed white ball captain had not recovered from the hamstring injury so the BCCI named KL Rahul as the new captain for the ODI series who was not the first preference of many experts. Now lack of experience was clearly visible in him. Venkatesh Iyer who was selected into the team as an all rounder did not get to bowl even one single over in the first match and after Rahul was bashed by the experts after the defeat Iyer was given the bowling in the second match but then Proteas had a plan against him so it was not at all fruitful. Further no one was impressed by his team combination and bowling changes. 

Talking about the performance if different players, captain Rahul himself had a dip in the form and could not score much runs. Getting on to Kohli I personally believe he is not out of form at all now. A person out of form doesn’t get good starts as he was getting but the main thing is now that the pressure of that 71st century is somehow playing his mind as well. He wants to break that jinx but is not able to. The way he was reaching into 50’s and 60’s was a result of flawless vintage Kohli strokes and he is close to hitting that hundred as well most probably in the coming West Indies series. Spin department also did not perform. Both Chahal and Ashwin failed to take wickets and were not impressive in building the pressure too. 

Leaving all this, the main area of concern which ICT is not able to figure out since 2019 World Cup is the middle order of the team which is continuously on the flop cards and no player is ready to take the responsibility and score runs in the middle overs. There was an era where the team was blessed with the sagacious Dhoni, destructive Yuvraj and dependable Raina in the middle order who had the sense of planning a run chase and were known for taking the game deeper and mostly towards India. Their records are such golden that Dhoni even today after 3 years of retirement holds the record of highest average of a player while chasing. Further the duo of Yuvraj and Raina used to bowl 5-10 overs effectively in the middle orders which gave captain the luxury of having more overs of main bowler towards the end. 

Its high time now team has been backing a lot of players unnecessarily and it is proving to be a roadblock of opportunities for the young players which results in player like Ruturaj sitting on the bench for the whole tour.  The think tank of Dravid alongside Rohit is expected to take some tough calls to balance the team with right combination of players as this is the year of ASIA CUP and T20 WROLD CUP  as well and India would not want to loose this one like in the previous year.