The Indian Cricket team had a successful South African tour winning the ODI series 5-1 and T20I series 2-1. Despite losing the test series 1-2, under the captaincy of Virat Kohli, Indian cricket team kept the ICC test championship mace for the second successive year.
Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Jasprit Bumrah performed brilliantly in all the matches they played. Virat Kohli was the stand out performance in test series and also in ODI series.
Indian’s spin twin of Yuzvendra Chahal and Kuldeep Yadav created havoc in ODI series taking 33 wickets between them. Shikhar Dhawan was brilliant in ODI and T20I series.There were few Indian players who could not perform according to the expectations.
Here we look at the 5 biggest disappointments for Team India in the South African tour:
- Murali Vijay
Before the tour to South Africa, Murali Vijay had good form scoring 2 centuries against Sri Lanka at home in November- December. It was a great challenge for Tamil Nadu lad batsman against top quality bowlers of South Africa including Rabada, Philander, Morne Morkel. Vijay could not provide good starts to the team.
His top score in the series was 46 during 1st innings of the 2nd test match at Centurion. He scored 102 runs in 3 matches ( 6 innings). Despite his solid technique, Murali Vijay could not give a solid foundation for team India to score big runs.
2. Rohit Sharma
Rohit Sharma was the biggest flop for team India during the 2-month long tour to South Africa. Before the South African series, Rohit scored big runs in home series against Sri Lanka. He played ahead of Rahane in the first two test matches and could not score big runs.
In the four test innings, Rohit Sharma made just 78 runs with the top score of 47 runs in the second innings of 2nd test at Centurion. He struggled in the One-day international series also with 170 runs in 6 matches. He made 115 during the 5th ODI at Port Elizabeth and helped team India post a competitive total.
Again in the T20I series, he could not give India good starts and scored just 32 runs in 3 matches. Overall, Rohit Sharma scored 280 runs from 13 innings at an average of 21.5 which is not good for such top quality batsman.
3. Hardik Pandya
Hardik Pandya could not prove his credentials as a potential all-rounder for team India. In the first innings of the first test at Cape Town, Pandya made a quick fire 93 and helped the visitors to reduce lead. After that, he could not make contributions in the next 10 innings scoring 83 runs.
He picked wickets in test matches but could not bowl more overs with Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Mohammad Shami, Jasprit Bumrah. In the ODI format too, he did not bowl 10 overs every time. He needs to improve on his bowling if he wants to become a genuine all-rounder in the upcoming overseas tours to England and Australia.
4. R Ashwin
Ravichandran Ashwin has performed well on Indian soil becoming fastest to take 300 wickets in test matches. His performance on South African shores during 3 match test series was not great. He played 2 matches ( 4 innings) taking 7 wickets. On a spinning wicket at Centurion, India’s star spinner took 4 wickets in the first innings.
When the team needed to take wickets, R Ashwin failed to produce the goods and took just 1 wicket in 29.3 overs. He contributed valuable runs but could not team India win matches with the ball. He was dropped for the 3rd test match at Johannesburg. The star Indian spinner was not selected in the ODI and T20I team.
5. No fixed number 4
The Indian Cricket team has not found number 4 batsman in ODI cricket. In the ODI series, Rahane was tried at number 4. He made just one good score of 79 runs in the first ODI at Durban. Apart from that Rahane could not score many runs at number 4. It is a big problem for Men in Blue to find a fixed number 4 batsman.
They have tried Manish Pandey, Kedar Jadhav, Suresh Raina and another batsman. With the World Cup 2019 coming up, India needs to have fixed number 4 in the upcoming ODI series against England, Australia, and New Zealand.