Famously called as the “Final Frontier ” The South African Test Series began on a rather sad note for the Rohit Sharma led Indian Team under the management of coach Rahul Dravid. South Africans in their own backyard humiliated the Indians with colossal innings and 32 runs defeat with 3.5 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.
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 which earlier had services of experienced Cheteshwar Pujara and Ajinkya Rahane in the SENA countries.
After failing to deliver in the World Test Championship Final of 2023 with the bat, experienced Indian mainstay at No 3, Cheteshwar Pujara had to bear the brunt of the loss and the consequences resulted the team selectors dropping this experience batter from the team with immediate effect.
Cheteshwar Pujara has been the flag bearer of the Indian batting order line up after the retirement of former Indian batter now coach Rahul Dravid and had made the No 3 spot in the test batting order his own after Dravid’s retirement. His consistency and technique as a pure test batter with a defensive stance to hold of one end of the batting crease firmly to keep India’s scoreboard ticking in away test matches was fruitful in India’s route to WTC Finals on two consecutive occasions.
Cheteshwar Pujara was instrumental in many Indian victories overseas the instrumental being His heroics in the 2018-19 Border Gavaskar Trophy in which he stood like a solid rock like a flesh in the thorn of the Australian fearsome attack in their own backyard batting out long hours to frustrate them thus scoring 521 runs in 4 games at an astonishing average of 74.43 leading India to its first series win in Australia. He followed it in the consequent series where suffering heavy body blows guided India to famous Gabba and series win in 2021-22.
The batting collapse in the 2nd innings at Centurion clearly showed that the young guns of Indian cricket Shubman Gill and Yashasvi Jaiswal lacked temperament to survive in hostile South African conditions and the team needed a batter like Pujara who would have been fruitful in such conditions. This absence of Cheteshwar Pujara has been taken to surprise and former Indian off- spinner Harbhajan Singh has been vocal about this on social media.
I don’t understand why Cheteshwar Pujara has been left out- Harbhajan Singh
Former Indian off-spinner Harbhajan Singh believes India made a huge mistake by dropping veteran batters like Ajinkya Rahane and Cheteshwar Pujara from their Test plans.
Harbhajan felt that the visitors moved on from Cheteshwar Pujara for no valid reason and also claimed that they do not have a better red-ball batter than the latter at the moment.
Speaking in a video on his YouTube channel, here’s what Harbhajan Singh had to say about Cheteshwar Pujara :
“Didn’t select Ajinkya Rahane and have left Cheteshwar Pujara out for no reason. These are the two players who have scored runs everywhere. If you look at the previous record Pujara has the same contribution as Kohli had. I don’t understand why Pujara has been left out, we still don’t have a better batter than Pujara in Test cricket. He plays slowly but he saves you, because of him India won Test in Australia and England,”
India’s first innings decided the match- Harbhajan Singh
Harbhajan Singh also reckoned that the visitors were always playing catch-up once they could only muster 245 in their first innings. He lauded the efforts of KL Rahul and Virat Kohli with the bat but feels that overall the visitors just didn’t turn up.
“In three days India for a single moment never looked in the game. They scored 245 runs after losing the toss in the first innings and it was all thanks to KL Rahul. He played a fantastic knock which propelled India’s score to 245. In the second innings, India could only score 131 and if you remove Virat Kohli’s contribution then it would have been more difficult. The match was decided on India’s performance in the first innings.” he concluded.
India will need to find some inspiration after such a hammering to compete and make a comeback in the second Test to be played in Cape Town on January 3 to level draw the series 1-1 and bring its place on track on the WTC Championship Points table in which currently India ranks 6th due to the shambolic drubbing.