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***Official*** India in South Africa 2021-22

centurymaker

Cricketer Of The Year
With Vihari getting runs, would India have the guts to drop Rahane for the decider in Cape Town? Although Rahane got runs, he as always looked edgy. Vihari started off edgy too but seemed to get the hang of SA bowling.

The biggest flop in the line up is Pant. What a reckless T20 deathover slog. It also didn't help that Ashwin & Shami unfortunately nicked down legside to ordinary balls. There were too many wickets gifted, while SA has fought hard to protect each and every wicket!
 

centurymaker

Cricketer Of The Year
Whatever happens in this match and series, Dean Elgar has shown ridiculous heart and guts. I want this guy to lead SA’s revival. So impressed with him as a leader.
SA have looked a damn good side. They have fought so hard and played well!

they are clearly better than their current ranking of 5th-6th.
 

Teja.

Global Moderator
Yeah I would not be upset if either or even both were dropped but they did score runs this test and fair is fair Rahane has had a good test series.

I did not see his dismissal today, but a little worried by what I have seen from Pant this series, obviously zero alternatives but he has to offer more with the bat.
The thing is that his defensive technique is clearly not up to par in South Africa, New Zealand and England but it’s worth keeping in mind that Dhoni is in the tier of the 3-4 keeper bats in the modern era after Gilchrist and he averaged about 30 outside Asia with no hundreds and 50 in Asia. Pant already has 2 hundreds outside Asia and several other great knocks.

The guy has 600+ runs in Australia in 7 tests @ 60+ which is the highest average of anyone post 2010 despite always facing the Cummins led attack and that record is through consistent knocks as opposed to just binking a huge one.

He also is great at facing spin and there is no reason why he shouldn’t be an excellent player in Asia in the long term as well.

Pant at his current standard is debarred from being a world class specialist batsman but he is not competing for that. He is a wk bat where if he manages to average 40 with the bat, he’s definitely world class.

I think he is on track for that. His weaknesses have just been accentuated really badly by India’s recent schedule since the WTC final just like how looked like the next batting genius in the 6 months before the WTC final in Australia and India. His actual standard is somewhere in between those ATG knocks and these tailender knocks.

That’s not to say he can’t improve from his horror showings in these parts though, he certainly should.

He also needs to work on his tendency to throw away his wicket in his 80-110 range if he wants to have a long and successful test career.
 

straw man

Hall of Fame Member
The match looks perfectly poised, both sides Ghambiring but it's pretty close to dead even 50-50 imo. Final day should be a great watch.
 

Tom Flint

International Regular
I think there's no point over-attributing blame. The most obvious reason we might lose is because Siraj was injured early in the test and it's very hard to do well against a side of similar strength when you are playing a bowler down for the entire match. This is especially true because it looks like we are going to be bowling for more than half of three consecutive days. That would have been a challenging workload management situation even if Siraj was there. Now it's a total nightmare. All the other problems with our bowling this test snowball from this fact.
This is a poor excuse imo.
There has only been 240 overs bowled in 3 days and India only had to bowl 120 of them of which siraj has bowled 10 at full fitness and the other 4 who are all genuine bowlers have shared 110 in 3 days.
Bumrah 31
Shami 30
Thakur 28
Ashwin 18. Lots of countries seamers bowl nearly that in a day not 3 days lol
 

silentstriker

The Wheel is Forever
I think there's no point over-attributing blame. The most obvious reason we might lose is because Siraj was injured early in the test and it's very hard to do well against a side of similar strength when you are playing a bowler down for the entire match. This is especially true because it looks like we are going to be bowling for more than half of three consecutive days. That would have been a challenging workload management situation even if Siraj was there. Now it's a total nightmare. All the other problems with our bowling this test snowball from this fact.
you don’t need five bowlers in the first place. And this is day three not five days where they’ve been bowling for 200 overs because of a massive first innings total.
 

Teja.

Global Moderator
This is a poor excuse imo.
There has only been 240 overs bowled in 3 days and India only had to bowl 120 of them of which siraj has bowled 10 at full fitness and the other 4 who are all genuine bowlers have shared 110 in 3 days.
Bumrah 31
Shami 30
Thakur 28
Ashwin 18. Lots of countries seamers bowl nearly that in a day not 3 days lol
I don’t care about giving excuses tbh. Fitness is also the responsibility of any team.

The additional fatigue is primarily for Thakur and is only a small part of the argument.

Playing 10v11 is a massive disadvantage in a team sport, even outside of work load.

Yes, teams can manage and without a specialist player but it makes the equation significantly harder.
 
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centurymaker

Cricketer Of The Year
I don’t care about giving excuses tbh. Fitness is also the responsibility of any team.

The additional fatigue is primarily for Thakur and is only a small part of the argument.

Playing 10v11 is a massive disadvantage in a team sport, even outside of work load.

Yes, teams can manage and without a specialist player but it makes the equation significantly harder.
Its like Jansen going down for SA. Ofcourse India would score a little bit more than they otherwise would. And that 10% extra makes the decisive difference in this really close match. But yes SA have played well enough to be in this position.
 

centurymaker

Cricketer Of The Year
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This is a poor excuse imo.
There has only been 240 overs bowled in 3 days and India only had to bowl 120 of them of which siraj has bowled 10 at full fitness and the other 4 who are all genuine bowlers have shared 110 in 3 days.
Bumrah 31
Shami 30
Thakur 28
Ashwin 18. Lots of countries seamers bowl nearly that in a day not 3 days lol
Though I mostly agree with you about workload.

Just wanted to add that Siraj got injured after 3.5 overs on day 1. And then on day 2, when nothing was working, he trundled in for 6 more overs because India was getting desperate at couple of stages in the 1st innings. So thats why its 9.5 overs.

I wonder if his injury has got worse And I wonder how long he might be out for now.
 
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