In the first test match between India and South Africa that took place in Cape Town, Indian team’s batting lineup struggled to score a good total against the Proteas. Although the team was quite commendable on the bowling front, the batting lineup certainly raised a few questions on the selection of the squad.
Right from the time when the squad was announced, experts started talking about Ajinkya Rahane’s omission from the team. The discussions have grown even graver with India losing the first test by 72 runs. As per the former player Sourav Ganguly, Ajinkya Rahane’s past performances should have been considered while selecting the players in the squad.
Ganguly feels that both Shikhar Dhawan and Rohit Sharma haven’t performed in overseas conditions while KL Rahul and Ajinkya Rahane have given commendable performances in the foreign grounds. In the post-match press conference, Indian captain Virat Kohli clarified the decision by pointing out that Rohit scored good runs in the last three test matches against Sri Lanka and the team decided to go by the current form.
However, the facts and figures narrate a completely different story. If we compare the performances of the players, Rohit has scored an average of 25.11 in the 15 tests matches that he has played on the foreign ground while Dhawan has just scored 1 century outside India. On the other hand, KL Rahul has scored three centuries outside India while Rahane gave 6 hundreds and 9 fifties in the overseas grounds.
Meanwhile, former South African all-rounder Lance Klusener pointed out that the way in which India is performing; it’s highly unlikely that the team will win the series. He said that Indian team hasn’t really played real fast bowling and the game against Sri Lanka was played on the home ground which says a lot about the situation.
He even pointed out that the team should have at least played a practice match to get acquainted with the field conditions. Also, South Africa has an upper hand in the game with 4 pacers and that’s a real challenge for India right now. Besides, Klusener also praised Hardik Pandya’s performance as an all-rounder.
