India in South Africa, January 2018

[Sin Hombre]

And Dhawan with a regulation catch dropped in the slips

[Prashant]

Just don't understand how Rahane doesn't make the team. What are these guys looking at?

And he would have helped the slip cordon as well.

[ssp]

271/8
South Africa may already have too many runs, given our record on conditions like this and with Dhawan & Rohit as 2 of the five batsmen.

[rajitghosh]

Indian batting back at its sorry best. The edges and miscued pulls are back. With no Rahane no chance of survival.

[Sin Hombre]

No temperament at all; only fake aggression from the duo of Kohli and Shastri.

It is ridiculous that the two are allowed to get away with playing Dhawan over Rahul and dropping Rahane.

[sameerph]

Also picking Pandya over the sixth batsman in the first away test in a while when we know that we need as many specialist batsmen as possible on these wickets.

[Prashant]

Ridiculous. Why Dhawan and why not Rahane. Shoot ourselves in the foot.

[Prem]

Dhawan dropped a sitter at third slip of Maharaj on 0...That resulted in at least 50 more runs being scored.
Also, 2 poor shots from Vijay and Dhawan to end the day badly. Let’s hope someone plays a great knock tomorrow to take us closer to the SA total and make a match of this rather than surrendering meekly.

We had SA 12/3 and then let the advantage slip with no support for Bhuvneshwar from the other end and than the Dhawan drop.

Rahane and Rahul should have played in place of Rohit and Dhawan, being the First Test of the series. Poor selection by India.

[prasen9]

In these conditions, Shami, Bumrah, and Hardik bowled "badly". Kumar was fine and Ashwin did his job. You can't win if three of your pacers bowl badly in these conditions. Especially, if you have a ton of batsmen who cannot bat abroad. And a captain and coach who are dense. Plus no slip catchers. Pathetic!

[sanjay8886]

With Dhoni retiring from test cricket, suddenly we have a very big tail. All batsmen boosted their batting avg by playing for last 6-9 months solely in sub-continent (in particular playing against pathetic SL). This was expected for batsmen to struggle on green top in SA. I am not very sure if we have evidence of Rahane being better than Rohit. On recent form, he has been struggling on sub continent pitches as well. Past data of him doing well on foreign soil is at least 9 months old. Rohit was correctly chosen for this test match. Indian team would do well in 3rd Test. Let's see if we can get past 200 in this inning.

[SaniaFan]

Rahane has always struggled in subcontinent conditions and always has been among the top 3 batsmen in terms of averages abroad and he would be the best overall amongst the players of current team. So it is not about 9 month old data. He has never failed in these condition. So it is stupid to not play him and also it was stupid to continue with him in subcontinent for so long. It is like Terry Alderman. Australia rarely played him in australia but will be picked if they are travelling to England and he would pick loads of wickets

[ssp]

Let's see if we can get past 200 in this inning.

Might be following on before lunch!

[ssp]

Was surprised to see only 1 more wicket lost in the first session, but we didn't score too many. Soon as I started following the match, our main hope, Pujara is out and now we can look forward to a hammering.

[Sin Hombre]

Overall extremely embarrassing from Kohli/Shastri and the "boys" - so much cringe has come from the two in recent times and utter capitulation.

[sanjay8886]

Oh ok, looks like 200 would be total by adding both innings together. Our wicketkeeper (who comes at 6 down, such is faith on him from captain) duly obliges with a duck. We should select the team on the basis of performance in SA, Eng, Aus and NZ. This is not looking good.