South Africa in India, Nov-Dec 2025

[Rajkumar Sharma]

https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1AJDNgPTme/

[prasen9]

We don't need Karthik. We said it here too that our younger players cannot play spin. And, those who play spin will not be picked by Agarkar. So, this is the situation we have.

Axar batted perfectly fine in this match. It is his bowling that is innocous. He had to hit because we have three batters at the end who cannot bat 10 balls out each.

Longer term, we need to think of playing only one of Bumrah or Siraj. We cannot play two #11s.

For Guwahati, I would look at dropping Kuldeep for an extra bat. For now, it would be Padikkal, the better of the two undeserved batters who have been handed India caps based on their white ball prowess. I hope they bring in a right-handed batter to replace Gill and play him. That would give right-left balance and not let Harmer work on left-handers throughout his over.

[Rajkumar Sharma]

Axar, Jadeja, Sundar are playing as allrounders, someone who can score 100s and pick 5 wickets. Kuldeep falls in "can bat category" . Once Gill got injured in first innings, none of them able to play long innings and gave India big lead.

[prasen9]

Nobody other than Sundar could bat in these conditions. Axar was the one who was last out trying to hit out with perhaps the worst two batters among the top five nations test teams. Yes, Axar could not hit out and score a 50 with the tail. Axar cannot score a hundred if he is given Kuldeep, Bumrah, and Siraj to bat with. Not even god can with such a useless lower tail. On this pitch, it was hard to score 25 or maybe 40. If you are given these idiots to bat with, you try to hit and take your chances. He got 20 runs or so and got out. His fault is much less than the fault of Yashasvi, Rahul, Jurel, and Jadeja - people who should be batting properly.

Jadeja needs to fix his old method of pad first. I think he will play differently in the future matches. He can bat. He does not need to pad up so close to the off stump. He should mark clearly where his off stump is and maybe five inches from there at where he can pad and keep a six inch buffer or so from the offstump to allow for variation of human judgement.

[Rajkumar Sharma]

GG wants to bring T20 mentality in Test, but its hard to get success in longer formats, as the situation is totally differant, and average skills will not get success. In Indian condition team needs to pick players who can play spin very well, despite if they doesn't falls in selector's good books. Sarfaraz, Karun has been harshly treated.

[prasen9]

Not only that, NTTV and Rinku are thinking what else they can do to get in. The key to selection is not performance on the field. If that was so, Sarfaraz would have walked in. It does not matter how well you bat. It matters how much you can "oil" Agarkar and his cronies. This is not how meritocracies work. They work based on performance. Nepotism-based regimes work on making the decision first and then justifying things. That is one explanation. The other is that Agarkar and his friends are plain dumb. Pushing IPL one-season successes has resulted in umpteen failures in ODIs and Tests. They still want to keep pushing that.

This sort of stupidity has resulted in weird selections. Avesh Khan is very good with the red ball. He is mediocre or bad with the white ball. He was given white ball cricket. I want to see Sai in the ODI team, where he is good. Instead he is foisted on the test team. They should start respecting formats, respecting reality of failures on the field and not wish it away. Etc.

[Rajkumar Sharma]

Not only that, NTTV and Rinku are thinking what else they can do to get in. The key to selection is not performance on the field. If that was so, Sarfaraz would have walked in. It does not matter how well you bat. It matters how much you can "oil" Agarkar and his cronies. This is not how meritocracies work. They work based on performance. Nepotism-based regimes work on making the decision first and then justifying things. That is one explanation. The other is that Agarkar and his friends are plain dumb. Pushing IPL one-season successes has resulted in umpteen failures in ODIs and Tests. They still want to keep pushing that.

Gambhir is also responsible and he puts his view in selections, not only in International format but also in India A, Rising Star tournaments. Failures are getting repeatedly picked and deserving ones are getting thrown away.

This sort of stupidity has resulted in weird selections. Avesh Khan is very good with the red ball. He is mediocre or bad with the white ball. He was given white ball cricket. I want to see Sai in the ODI team, where he is good. Instead he is foisted on the test team. They should start respecting formats, respecting reality of failures on the field and not wish it away. Etc.

Karun Nair, Sarfaraz should have been given opportunities. Sai & Padikkal are undeserved one, and the way things are going they might do a Prthivi Shaw thing with Vaibab Suryabansi and Ayush Mahatare.

[prasen9]

I must say that Gambhir and Agarkar are complete, out and out morons. Nitish Reddy called in as cover for Shubman Gill. Nitish averages under 30 in tests and under 25 in FC cricket with the bat. They are giving him chances to replace our 2nd best batter (or 3rd best if you think Pant is better than Gill). This total ignorance of reality is crazy. Nitish, Sai, Washy have not excelled with the bat in domestics. We are playing in India where the ability to bat long against spin is paramount. Washy has shown signs of being a competent bat. These other batters are being chosen basically on hope and prayer that they turn out a fluke. Good luck!

[SaniaFan]

I think idea is to bring Sai back in the team. Sai one down and Washy 2 down and probably include Nitish for Kuldeep

[prasen9]

Well, of course. Then, you have even more left-handers when their best spinner is a very accurate offie. Geniuses! We have lost the four matches in India in the last year not because of our bowling but because of our batting that is now rank bad on spinning pitches. Our resident geniuses do not recognize that. Or do not care and just want to push their favorites.

And, they will bring in Nitish for Kuldeep and not give him an over to bowl.

[prasen9]

The best batters we have had in the last five years? Qual: 20 dismissals

YBK Jaiswal 2023-2025 27 51 2 2440 214* 49.79 3686 66.19 7 12 6 304 43 investigate this query
RR Pant 2020-2025 35 62 4 2642 146 45.55 3471 76.11 6 16 2 288 73 investigate this query
Shubman Gill 2020-2025 40 73 7 2843 269 43.07 4623 61.49 10 8 5 318 46 investigate this query
RA Jadeja 2020-2025 39 60 8 2166 175* 41.65 4353 49.75 5 13 4 215 30 investigate this query
KL Rahul 2021-2025 30 56 3 2019 137 38.09 4165 48.47 6 9 3 246 16 investigate this query
SS Iyer 2021-2024 14 24 2 811 105 36.86 1287 63.01 1 5 2 94 16 investigate this query
RG Sharma 2021-2024 35 63 3 2160 161 36.00 3925 55.03 6 8 2 257 36 investigate this query
AR Patel 2021-2025 15 24 4 688 84 34.40 1297 53.04 0 4 1 73 20 investigate this query
V Kohli 2020-2025 37 65 3 1990 186 32.09 4056 49.06 3 9 5 216 8 investigate this query
CA Pujara 2020-2023 26 48 3 1355 102* 30.11 3573 37.92 1 10 5 172 2 investigate this query
AM Rahane 2020-2023 20 35 1 874 112 25.70 1856 47.09 1 4 4 103 6 investigate this query
R Ashwin 2020-2024 35 53 2 1114 113 21.84 2049 54.36 2 3 5 129 9 investigate this query
SN Thakur 2021-2025 12 20 0 373 67 18.65 618 60.35 0 4 3 46 9 investigate this query
JJ Bumrah 2020-2025 37 55 14 310 34* 7.56 678 45.72 0 0 22 34 11 investigate this query
Mohammed Siraj 2020-2025 44 59 25 152 16* 4.47 443 34.31 0 0 15 16 2 investigate this query

Ignore the bottom of the list. I just got the whole list.

Shows how poor Kohli, Pujara, Rahane were. People will point to the wickets, etc. but you can add about 3 runs/innings more to them - not that much more to compensate.

[prasen9]

Now for the V.V.S. Laxman Best Chaser Award. Kohli averaged 28.86 and Pujara 22.2 chasing in I4.

Last five years, 5 dismissals qualification.

Overall figures
Player Span Mat Inns NO Runs HS AveDescending BF SR 100 50 0 4s 6s
RR Pant 2020-2025 14 10 2 315 97 39.37 482 65.35 0 3 1 38 5 investigate this query
CA Pujara 2020-2023 9 8 2 227 77 37.83 604 37.58 0 2 0 33 0 investigate this query
YBK Jaiswal 2024-2025 11 11 1 309 84 30.90 460 67.17 0 3 2 40 4 investigate this query
Shubman Gill 2020-2025 17 15 3 358 91 29.83 610 58.68 0 3 1 38 7 investigate this query
RG Sharma 2021-2024 15 14 3 328 55 29.81 513 63.93 0 2 0 38 7 investigate this query
V Kohli 2021-2024 12 9 1 206 72 25.75 359 57.38 0 1 0 27 0 investigate this query
KL Rahul 2021-2025 11 9 2 153 58* 21.85 280 54.64 0 1 1 21 2 investigate this query
RA Jadeja 2020-2025 16 8 1 135 61* 19.28 382 35.34 0 1 1 8 1 investigate this query
Washington Sundar 2021-2025 9 7 1 91 31 15.16 247 36.84 0 0 2 6 1 investigate this query
Mohammed Siraj 2020-2025 17 6 1 17 12 3.40 60 28.33 0 0 2 1 0 investigate this query

Some surprising numbers here, perhaps due to small sample size.

Pant is our best chaser averaging almost 40 (8 dismissals). Pujara is second at 37.82 (6 dismissals) - so the old dog learned to bat in I4 a bit better than his abysmal career numbers, or it is just a small sample size fluke.

Sundar, Jadeja, and Rahul are the worst chasing (6, 7, 7 dismissals) each.

Kohli was bad in the last five years. As was Rohit. Gill is about the same as Rohit and Yashaswi is slightly better but about the same. That means that Yashaswi is a early inning stalwart. But, I guess 30 chasing is not bad. So, maybe Yashaswi and Gill are okay.

All with small sample size but that is what we have.

I was most disappointed when Pant was out. I knew the game was gone. He went into a surprising shell and trusted his defense. Then he played a nothing lob back.

[prasen9]

On form, our best XI on a pitch that has something for pacers in India is:

Yashasvi, Rahul, Nair, Gill, Pant, Jurel, Jadeja, Washy, Shami, Kuldeep, Bumrah

If the pitch does not support pacers, then we should replace Shami with Nitish.

If you replace Shami with Siraj/Nitish, Nair with Sai, Gill with Axar/Nitish that weakens the team from what it could be. Nair is a very good player of spin. As is Sarfaraz. It makes no sense to not play with India-specialists in India against a strong opposition. Against the second-division teams such as West Indies, drop them and play the youngsters.

[Rajkumar Sharma]

Last time India won a test match in rank turner , that too with struggle was against Bangladesh. Shreyas Iyer & Ashwin made it possible. So, its not only NZ series, struggle in rank turners begin much earliier.

[prasen9]

True. It has been an unfortunate characteristic in the Gambhir era. We need to be realistic. If the team can draw in England, it can win in India on pitches that can last five days. This 2-3 day pitch is nonsense. Slow spin on day 1 is great. Lottery pitch is almost as bad as the flat pitches in Pakistan, England, etc.