India ride on openers’ boost, pace depth versus clueless SA

India are becoming even better at home. There are no signs India’s formidable record on home soil is likely to change any time soon. On the contrary, even as pitches differ more across the many different venues India play at, they consistently find a way to beat any opposition that lands on their shores. It’s nearly seven years since India last lost a home series, during which time they’ve played 33 matches at home, losing just once.

India have won 81% of the home matches they’ve played since that series loss to England, 10% more than any other team. People might argue they were lucky with the toss in this series, but their win percentage when losing the toss at home during this extraordinary run is still 73%, higher than every other team in that time. hard to accept. Not that there is any disgrace in succumbing to the current Indian pace attack— Mohammed Shami and Umesh Yadav in particular were exceptional throughout, while Ishant Sharma was hardly needed and Jasprit Bumrah and Bhuvneshwar Kumar played no part at all. It’s a measure of how strong this group of quicks is that India were so dominant in this series even without arguably the best bowler in the world.

SA STRUGGLING

Losing Hashim Amla and Dale Steyn in quick succession would hurt any team and, when you add their retirements to the earlier loss of AB de Villiers, it’s clear South Africa are a team in transition—16 players were used across the three Tests with the Proteas’ constant tinkering doing them few favours in a series that would have been tough enough at the best of times.

Dane Piedt played the first Test, was dropped for the next and came back for the third, Quinton de Kock started at seven with the gloves, and finished it as opener without them. It was all a bit chaotic and gave the look of a team hoping something they tried would work, rather than working to a specific plan. There are talented players in the South African set up, but at this stage in the team’s development, they are yet to settle on how best to use them.

OPENING PAIR

For what seems an eternity, India have had a revolving door at the top of their batting order. Murali Vijay, Shikhar Dhawan, KL Rahul have all been in and out of the side, while Prithvi Shaw sparkled briefly before injury (and doping suspension) curtailed his promise.

Almost by accident, India have ended up with Mayank Agarwal, a player who was a beneficiary of the merry-go-round selection policy at the end of last year, and Rohit Sharma who had never previously opened in a Test.

The pair averaged 93.75 together, the highest of any Indian opening pair in a series since Gautam Gambhir and Virender Sehwag’s 100.25 against New Zealand in 2010.

To put that into more context, South Africa’s various opening pairs in this series collectively averaged 4.83.

Sharma and Agarwal were first and third in the list of leading scorers in the series and accounted for five of the top ten individual scores. If India have indeed settled on this as the opening pair for the foreseeable future, what had been a slight Achilles heel has suddenly been addressed and an already excellent team looks stronger than before.