Team India Loses SA Tour

SA Tour: Bitter end to one of Team India's better years

Last updated on: December 31, 2013 15:38 IST

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Bikash Mohapatra

Despite talk about doing well overseas, the reality is that it will take more time, and a concentrated effort -- and that includes making sporting wickets at home -- for Team India to perform consistently overseas, let alone win, says Bikash Mohapatra.
-Team India Report Card: Kohli, Pujara 8/10; Rohit Sharma 2/10
It could have been a perfect year for M S Dhoni and Co.
It could have been the year when the team would have remained unbeaten in each and every bilateral series or multi-nation tournament they featured in.
It could have been a year where the team wouldn’t have lost a single Test match.
It could have been Team India’s annus mirabilis.
It could have been… but for the trip the team undertook towards the fag end of the year.
South Africa is one of the two countries – Australia being the other – where the Indian team has never won a bilateral series.
Yeah, you heard it right. One of the first teams to tour South Africa – post their return to international cricket in 1991 – India returned empty-handed every time in the last two decades. (Down Under that period stretches to seven decades)
This occasion was no different.

Image: Virat Kohli reacts after being given out
Photographs: Rogan Ward/Reuters

Related News: Team India , South Africa , Bikash Mohapatra , Rohit Sharma , MS Dhoni

India look to salvage some pride

3rd ODI: MS Dhoni's team will hope to pull one back at Centurion on Wednesday.

EYES WIDE SHUT: Rohit Sharma has struggled to put bat on ball this series.

CENTURION: If one were to measure India’s improvement from the first ODI at Johannesburg to the second ODI at Durban, one wouldn’t run out of fingers. Considering that they lost at the Bull Ring by 141 runs and at Kingsmead by 134 runs, the margin of progress for MS Dhoni’s side can safely be pegged at seven runs – not much of an advancement for the star-studded No.1 ODI team in the world, who are assured of holding their top-spot even if they are routed 0-3 in the series.

Going into the truncated series against South Africa, India were expected to put up a much better show in the limited-overs format – an expectation that was immolated when they were singed by Dale Steyn’s fiery pace in the tour opener. Even more surprising than the transformation of India’s super bats into walking wickets was the inability of their bowlers to harness the conditions. India’s fielding too, in the last two games, has not been up to the mark. This means that the current set – at least on the current tour – can be rightly described, in the apocryphal words of an English reporter, as one that ‘can’t bat, can’t bowl and can’t field’.

Phrases such as ‘redemption’ and ‘fightback’ have already started doing the rounds ahead of the third and last ODI, to be played at Centurion on Wednesday. But are Dhoni’s men capable of surmounting the conditions and pulling one back, if only for the sake of morale heading into the two-Test series? On evidence, it certainly won’t be for want of trying (new combinations).



One poor show was all it took for Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Mohit Sharma to be shown the door. Their replacements for the second ODI, Ishant Sharma and Umesh Yadav fared marginally better, even though Umesh was caned for 20 in the last over of the South African innings. That India held the hosts to a sub-300 total after the massive opening stand between centurions Hashim Amla and Quinton de Kock spoke more of the nature of the surface – sluggish, not conducive to shot-making – less of the skill of India’s bowlers.

While South Africa’s openers have added 152 and 194 in two matches, Rohit Sharma and Shikhar Dhawan have looked inept against the moving ball, and combined for grand totals of 14 and 10. Virat Kohli is having a rare poor series, and the Nos.4 and 5 (Yuvraj Singh/Ajinkya Rahane and Suresh Raina) are ensuring that all pre-event fears of Indians being bunnies to sheer pace are coming true with great rapidity.

Five-pronged pace

What a dwindling top-order has ascertained is that by the time the likes of Dhoni, Ravindra Jadeja and R. Ashwin (arguably the most ‘correct’ batsman on display) have walked in, the situation is beyond redress. Not that South Africa, having chosen to play without a dedicated spinner, have relented their five-pronged pace attack for even a bit.

India and South Africa are locked 2-2 in ODIs at Centurion, with the hosts winning the last game to be played here between the sides, in January 2011. There is some hope for India as the Proteas think-tank may rest Jacques Kallis and Dale Steyn for the last ODI, preserving them for the Test series ahead. But it is doubtful if that will amount to a let-up in pace, with Morne Morkel, Vernon Philander, Lonwabo Tsotsobe and Ryan McLaren possessing more than enough pace and movement for the Indian batsmen.

The teams (from), India: MS Dhoni (Capt.), Shikhar Dhawan, Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, Yuvraj Singh, Suresh Raina, R Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Mohammad Shami, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Umesh Yadav, Ishant Sharma, Amit Mishra, Ambati Rayudu, Ajinkya Rahane; South Africa: AB de Villiers (Capt.), Hashim Amla, Quinton de Kock, JP Duminy, Imran Tahir, Jacques Kallis, Ryan McLaren, David Miller, Morne Morkel, Wayne Parnell, Vernon Philander, Graeme Smith, Dale Steyn, Lonwabo Tsotsobe.

Sreesanth to wed Jaipur girl on December 12

Former India pace bowler Shantakumaran Sreesanth will marry a girl from a royal family of Jaipur on December 12 at the Guruvayoor Sree Krishna temple.
A close aide of the disgraced cricketer, who is serving a life ban for spot-fixing in matches in the sixth edition of the Indian Premier League, told IANS the marriage will be solemnized at the Guruvayoor temple on December 12.
- The spot-fixing saga
He also added that later in the evening, and also the next day, there will be a reception in Kochi.
Sreesanth's mother Savithri Devi confirmed the news saying "he will be marrying Nayan".
Sreesanth, who was charged under the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA), was arrested by the Delhi police on May 16 and subsequently jailed till June 11 while playing for Rajasthan Royals in the IPL.
He was banned from all forms of the game by the Board of Control for Cricket in India.
There are allegations that Sreesanth had given away 14 runs during an IPL 6 match and had signalled to bookies by tucking a towel in his trousers and stretching before the over.
However, Sreesanth refuted all these allegations, saying it was a normal practice to use a towel or warming up before an over. He also added that there was no guarantee that the captain would ask him to bowl a particular over.