Bench strength

After the humiliating 2-0 Test series loss to South Africa and a close ODI series, which India won 2-1, the T-20 series first match at Cuttack proved to be a power packed one, especially by our all rounder Hardik Pandya, whose powerful hitting set a fighting target of 176 for the South African team to chase.

However, as usual, it was our bowlers who came to the party to skittle out the fighting South African team, that too for a paltry score of 74 to win the tie by a huge margin of 101 runs, to go one up in the 5 match series. No doubt our man in blue won this match easily. But it would be foolish to take them lightly.

Of late our top order batsmen seems to be struggling to give a good opening stand against the penetrating pace attack of South Africa pace bowlers. We sincerely hope that the team think tank doesn't go by the usual habit of retaining the winning team. It would be nice to try out our bench strength, where we have better top order batsmen. Over confidence could prove to be a bane!

Capt. N. Viswanathan,

Coimbatore, India