Famously called as the “Final Frontier ” The South African Test Series began on a rather sad note for Rohit Sharma led Indian Team under the management of coach Rahul Dravid. South Africans in their own backyard humiliated the Rohit Sharma led side with colossal innings and 32 runs defeat with 3 and half days of the Iconic Boxing day test match with no Indian Batter apart from KL Rahul in the 1st innings and Virat Kohli in the 2nd innings showed grit and determination to put on the fight against the fiery South African pace attack
More lackluster and shambolic performance on the pitch that supported considerable swing alongside pace and bounce were the performances of Indian bowlers who were unable to extract any in compared to their counterparts who ripped aside the Indian batting line up comprising of the mixture of youth and experience seasoned players.
Such was the wayward performance of Indian bowlers except Bumrah that South Africa even without the services of Captain Temba Bavuma who did not bat due to hamstring injury sustained in the match racked up a mountain of runs 408 for 9 wickets to be precise after bundling India for 245 runs thanks to century from KL Rahul and taking the lead of 163 runs in their first Innings.
The support from the likes of Shardul Thakur and debutant Prasidh Krishna was so mediocre that they ended up considering almost 200 runs under 40 overs which provided SA the impetus to score runs freely. The bowlers bowled wayward line and lengths to allow SA batters go for their shots at free will thus were unsuccessful in creating any kind of pressure on them.
This lead proved more than enough for their quicks to rattle out India in the second innings for mere 131 runs with no batter apart from Virat Kohli showed resistance and grit to even stand on with him and forge a partnership decent enough. It clearly showed the lack of experience Indian youths with the likes of Shubman Gill Yashaswi Jaiswal had and the impact of performance from Team India
This shambolic defeat however did not go with the Indian fans and they have sorted to all the ways on social media to bash and troll the Indian team which seems right at the moment.
Disappointed Captain Rohit Sharma who himself had a failure with the bat in both the innings scoring 5 and 0 in 2 innings as a opener clearly opened upon the teams dismal performance in the first test match. On the eve of second test match at Newlands Capetown Rohit Sharma has once again inserted confidence in his bowlers to deliver and expects a better performance from them in this New Year Test.
We have not completely finalized our playing XI- Rohit Sharma
After India’s horrendous defeat, many speculated changes in the Indian team 11 for the second test match to be played at Newlands Capetown. However Indian skipper Rohit Sharma had different views regarding the same in the pre match press conference before the match.
Indian captain Rohit Sharma has claimed that the team management hasn’t yet taken a final call on the playing XI for the second Test against South Africa beginning at Newlands, Cape Town, on Wednesday, January 3. There has been a lot of talk about India’s bowling attack, especially due to the likes of Shardul Thakur and Prasidh Krishna, who were highly expensive in the team’s comprehensive defeat at Centurion.
However, while speaking to the reporters on the eve of the second Test, Rohit Sharma explained the importance of backing inexperience in difficult times. He said:
“We have not completely finalized our playing XI. All are available to play. We will sit down and decide. I still feel sometimes, we have inexperience in our bowling. In such a case we have to show trust in the team,”
Rohit Sharma backs Prasidh Krishna to come good
Prasidh Krishna had a woeful start to his Test career, giving away 93 runs and picking up just one wicket on debut. While claimers about him being dropped are getting louder, Rohit Sharma understands why it could have been nerve-racking for the debutant.
On this, he stated:
“I still stand by what I said in the post-match press conference after the first Test. Prasidh Krishna has got good ability to succeed at this level. It was his first match. It is understandable to get nervous,”
India do have a couple of options up their sleeves in terms of fast bowling options, with Mukesh Kumar and uncapped Avesh Khan in the mix. It will be interesting to see if they replace Prasidh with any of the aforementioned options or if they trust the bowling attack to help them avoid a 2-0 whitewash.
Rohit himself had a pretty poor first Test with scores of 0 & five and will want to step up as the experienced batter for the visitors. Thus as a New Year 2024 begins a new hope will rise for Team India to rise up on the occasion and win the test match at Newlands to draw the series 1-1 a feat which they achieved in 2010 under MS Dhoni.