- The Indian Test cricket team has been on an upswing over the last four years or so is stating the obvious. The way the Virat Kohli-led team has performed in the classic format of the game holds testimony to the fact that Indian cricket has grown from strength to strength. Mind you, any cricket team to be rightly considered as the all-conquering group must be able to perform overseas apart from asserting supremacy in home conditions as well. Looking back, the Test teams of yore like the West Indies of 1970 / the 80s and the Australian team of 1990s /2000s had that invincible air of authority, swag, and the performance to boot when they mercilessly annihilated opposition both at home as well as overseas.
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- No wonder, both these teams were not only dreaded for their all-powerful combination in every department of the game but also the consistency with which they went about winning hands-down for years on. Another extremely important feature of these world-conquering teams was the composition of the playing XI which invariably had at least three to four world-class bowlers performing admirably on every condition on offer. Not for nothing, it is mentioned in cricket parlance that bowlders win the matches as taking twenty wickets alone fetches desirous results. On similar lines, the Indian Test team too was developing over the past few years.
- Cricket enthusiasts would recall back-to-back series victories in Australia, a no mean achievement indeed, and of course taming the English team in their own backyards was a momentous triumph that should go down in red letters in the annals of Indian cricket history. Similar hopes were entertained when Team India set about touring South Africa for the three-match Test series recently. And to add to the hopes, the South African cricket team was in a turmoil of sorts owing to cricketing as well as other factors falsely rendering the selected bunch as easy rollovers. On paper, Team India appeared to be strong favorites expected to beat the hosts comfortably.
PC: Cricket Network
- Indeed, the first Test was won handsomely by the visitors and the hopes were further rekindled to conquer the last frontier which had eluded Team India in winning a series in South Africa for the first time in thirty years. From the second Test onwards, the script changed dramatically as the never-say-die approach of the Proteas came to the fore resulting in successive Test wins to record a 2-1 series win defeating the much-fancied Team India quite comprehensively. The sole reason for the series loss should be attributed to collective batting failure, especially the brittle middle-order batters, who could not put enough runs on the board allowing the fabulous pace bowling attack something to fight for.
- The spectacular failure of some of the batters viz., Mayank Agarwal, Cheteshwar Pujara, Ajinkya Rahane, and to some extent, the captain Virat Kohli put paid to Indian hopes of registering a series victory in South Africa. Looked from any angle, a golden opportunity to win against the less fancied and endowed South African team appears to have been missed by Team India. In hindsight, consistently failing to put up healthy runs on the board led to our subjugation by a lesser fancied team despite possessing no stalwarts worth mentioning. Back to the drawing board and necessary chopping of the team composition should ensue.
