Team India’s poor batting performance against South Africa is very disappointing. None of the Indian batters managed to create an impact. It looked that most of the batsmen are going through a rough patch. Something is really wrong in the selection of batsmen. Chateshwar Pujara, Ajinke Rahane, Virat Kohli and Mayank Agarwal were completely at a loss to deal with crises. Flashes of brilliance did ignite hope by K L Rahul and Reshabh Panth for sometime but in vain. Even captain Kolhi’s performance has been inconsistent.

Though we expected a series win against this South African team but Indian batsmen failed to put runs on the board. We can’t think of winning Test matches by scoring 200 runs in both the innings.  I must appreciate Indian bowlers for putting up a brave effort. The bowling unit did a great job. The way Md Shami and Jaspreet Bumrah bowled throughout the series is commendable. Veteran spinner Ravichandran Ashwin too failed to utilise his experience. Now the Test series is over. Hope the think-tank of Team India will come up with some solution.

We can hope for the best as Captain Kohli stepped down as a Test skipper. Earlier he relinquished the T20 captaincy. Kohli seems to have taken responsibility for the bad performance in South Africa. This also shows something is wrong the way things are moving. I am surprised at the whole episode. Rather than working on weaknesses Kohli opted to tweet the news of his stepping down from the captaincy. I feel Kohli should have handled the situation in a different manner. He has lived like a king. He has led his team from the front. He should have been a little patient with his decision. He is a global star and just resigning at the drop of a hat does not suit him. Anyway, hope the BCCI comes up with some permanent solutions. Let’s see how it goes.

Sadhu Chakraborty
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