India in South Africa, 2021-22

[prasen9]

Also looking at the numbers, I am not sure England is worse than us. Reading from the list of stats I posted above:

Root > Rahul

Rahane > Stokes (barely)

Pope, Burns, Sibley > Kohli

(and thereby better than Pant, Pujara)

Buttler > Mayank

Bairstow > Shami !!! lol

So, except Rahane-Stokes, we lose all the matchups to even England. That is how bad our batting has been! Our bowling eked out the wins in England.

Their total of averages will certainly be more than ours (with or without Shami lol) even after including England's horror show at the Ashes (presumably not including the Sydney test). And, we have the worst tailenders in the world (last 3). So, surely the English bowlers are better bats than us with Woakes, Broad, etc. in their midst.

[Kumar]

Kohli played beautifully. He had a great chance to get a century, but ran out of partners at the end. Thakur should come 5 down. Pant played well, but then threw his wicket once again. We won in Australia becoz of Pujara and Pant. Not sure why Umesh Yadav was not sent ahead of Bumrah.

I am not convinced KL Is captain material. His performance seems to slightly taper as series progress and he dies not seem like an inspiring or intelligent captain.

Ashwin needs to change his approach when he has a batsman like Kohli at other end. He should have looked to play with in himself. Jadeja in this match would have been seen India safely thru. We really miss Rohit and Jadeja in this series.

[PKBasu]

Yes, it was a superb innings from Kohli -- restrained and disciplined until he got to 20 (off some 85 balls), then slowly accelerating as the situation demanded.
But he made a bizarre decision to promote Bumrah ahead of Umesh and Shami, and that probably hastened the end of Kohli's own innings. After refusing several singles in the early part of overs, he stepped several steps outside off to steer one from Rabada (the type of outside-off delivery he'd routinely left alone) for a single, and nicked it to the 'keeper.

[ssp]

79/3. Every time i check, a boundary is conceded.

I fear this match will follow the pattern of the 2nd test. We'll struggle to get the wickets despite going past the edge or drop catches. We've also picked Umesh who will bowl at least one boundary ball per over.

Apart from day 1 of the first test, South Africa's batters have been better than ours.

[suresh]

The news of my demise as a bowler are highly exaggerated.

[prasen9]

Huh, doing a Mark Twain.

BTW, Suresh did Rahane or Pujara say anything like that? Or is it deafening silence?

I think it is clear why Kohli chose Umesh over Ishant. Because he is older. But, I have to think that if Ishant was able to flat bat 20-30 balls, Kohli could have scored at the other end and not have to shield the crazies at #9-11. We have maybe three #10-11s at these slots.

With all the news of them getting batting practice, etc., all they are doing is moving away and taking a huge swipe. Bumrah was perhaps trying to play defense properly. But, their footwork and perhaps eyes are too weak to survive in these conditions.

[prasen9]

We need a different backup opener than Mayank. He is very poor abroad. Maybe Gill gets a chance despite his technical deficiencies. We can have a platoon of Mayank-Gill. Mayank plays at home and Gill abroad.

Vihari, Kohli, and Rahul have batted well so far. But, Rahul faded after his first innings.

Rahane, Pujara and Mayank have been sub-standard.

Pant and Ashwin have been bad. Don't know if we really got value out of Ashwin. In hindsight, it seems Vihari could have contributed more, extrapolating from his contributions in one test. May he prove me wrong in the rest of the two innings.

Thakur with the bat has been bad. Bumrah okay for his position. Shami and Siraj awful.

So after Kohli goes, there are a bunch of underperformers with the bat. Quite disconcerting.

[ssp]

It's very unlikely we will reach 300. Would love to be proven wrong but we just don't have good enough batsmen left to set a high enough target.

If the 2nd test us anything to go buy, 350 is required and then hope Elgar edges one rather than play and miss 30 times .

[Kumar]

Considering the poor form of Pant, we needed an additional batsman. I think Ashwin has very little value as a bowler with older ball. If u are playing him , bring him in the 10-15 overs especially .

This series rest on the partnership between Pujara and Kohli. We had a good partnership between Rahane and Pujara in the last match and we still lost it. We need them to score a big century and i am hoping Pujara and Kohli can come thru.

KL Rahul once again disappoints. For some one that scores a century in first innings of the first test match, to look so tentative as series progress is not a good luck. You can see Petersen looking more comfortable as the series progress. I am not sure KL is a long term answer either.

[prasen9]

On current form, we should use Rahul and Rohit as openers the next time abroad. Or have Gill open and have Rohit come in at #5 with Rahane at #3.

[PKBasu]

Unless it is sunny tomorrow morning, our batsmen are going to struggle. So the Kohli-Pujara partnership becomes all the more important: the longer they can hang around, the better the chances of an Indian victory.

[prasen9]

Every batter should be determined and scrap. Work out with RSD and the team what balls they will hit and what they will leave alone to maximize the chances of scoring runs. Which means Pujara needs to hit. He won't stay beyond say 100 balls. Can he score a 50 using these? Is Thakur better off playing and trying to hit a lot of balls because he cannot defend? Maybe Pant and Ashwin need to figure out which balls they should hit and which they should not? Pant is being outdone with variable or high bounce. Maybe leave the short-pitched balls alone or only play shots to the slower balls? I do not know what the answers are but I know with analytics you can plan for a high % performance. The rest as they say is luck.

[rajitghosh]

Are we seeing the end of 2 careers today? Rahane I think needs 1 catch to reach 100 catches.

[PKBasu]

What a shambolic batting performance, apart from a pearl of an innings from Rishabh Pant. Kohli put in the hard yards, but the bug in his batting-brain's software re-surfaced. He got out to an away-swinger far outside off-stump to Ngidi, a replica of how he got out in the first test.

India haven't set a challenging target at all. The bowlers will really have to be on their game to win this. A golden opportunity to beat a transitional South Africa side has been squandered.

[ssp]

Joke batting line up. But only the selectors can't see the madness in keeping non performing players on for year after year.

I just knew our 2 'greats' would be out within 30 mins. They actually did worse than that. Now, just watch 20-30 runs conceded to edges to 3rd man, but we won't plug that area.

Elgar is really infuriating. Misses so many and never, ever edges one.

6 or 7 wicket win for South Africa is the most likely outcome.