INDIA’S 10 MISTAKES IN SOUTH AFRICA
1 PULLING OUT OF WARMUP MATCH
You just can’t come to South Africa and declare that practicing among yourselves is better than playing a warm-up match against a team of unknowns. But this team was so confident that it felt it didn’t need any practice match, not even to get their combinations sorted.
2 SIDELINING AJINKYA RAHANE
Forget South Africa, you shouldn’t drop Ajinkya Rahane even in a warm-up match. India captain Virat Kohli said he knows Rahane has the best average outside Asia and yet he went with current form of Rohit Sharma, based on the centuries scored on docile home pitches against depleted Sri Lanka. Massive blunder.
3 PERSISTING WITH ROHIT
Here is where it got worse. A match is half won if you bat well in the first innings. But Rohit Sharma, bred on featherbed pitches in India, couldn’t move his legs quick enough to keep up with Kagiso Rabada’s pace at Centurion. He should have been dropped after Cape Town but Kohli of course had other ideas.
4 THE RAHULDHAWAN CONUNDRUM
Shikhar Dhawan is terrific at home. KL Rahul is a technically better batsman. Who do you pick for a seaming pitch in Cape Town? This Indian team management is driven by logic and reasoning that makes sense only to them. Once Dhawan didn’t fire in Cape Town, they dropped him on a pitch where he could have given a good start.
5 FIVE BATSMEN INSTEAD OF SIX
Going with five bowlers, including off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin, on a seaming Newlands pitch was contradictory to what Sanjay Bangar had said ahead of the Test. Ashwin ended up bowling just 8.1 overs. Surely another batsman (read Rahane) could have been fitted into this team?
6 WHERE IS THE NIGHTWATCHMAN?
With 11 overs left for the first day on a pitch that was making the batsmen literally dance, the ‘experienced’ India team management didn’t have the common sense of sending out a nightwatchman after the openers. Happened in Cape Town and then in Centurion. What good does it do to the side when you lose Virat Kohli so early? Shielding Rohit Sharma by sending Parthiv Patel was another wrong message.
7 READING THE PITCH WRONG AT CENTURION
Faf du Plessis, who plays domestic cricket for the Titans at Centurion, was concerned with the burnt grass at one end of the pitch. But Virat Kohli said he found the pitch to be lively. Who do you believe? And what does that tell about the pitch reading ability of this India team?
8 DROPPING BHUVI AFTER HEROICS
Another wrong message sent to the team when you drop your best bowler in the previous Test only because you feel the Centurion pitch is not suited for him. Restricting Bhuvneshwar Kumar like this is preventing him from showing that he might not be a one-trick pony. Not to forget his batting ability as well.
9 ONE SPINNER WHERE THEY SHOULD HAVE PLAYED TWO
R Ashwin looked a lone warrior while bowling 68.2 overs, the highest among all India bowlers, at Centurion. This was a pitch that would have made Ravindra Jadeja’s eyes light up. But India went with the clichéd one spinner, one allrounder with three pacers, consigning Jadeja, who has three Ranji Trophy triple centuries, to jogging around the field during breaks.
PULLING SHAMI OUT WHEN 10 HE WAS ON A ROLL
You don’t pull your pace spearhead out of the attack when he has dismissed AB de Villiers, Dean Elgar and Quinton de Kock and has South Africa on the mat at 163/5. Kohli brought in Hardik Pandya and Ishant Sharma, allowing South Africa the time to resurrect their innings and reach 258 in the end.