India vs. South Africa: 3 points KL Rahul has to address in the on-going series
KL Rahul has been in the discussions of several people to take over the leadership role for India in the near future. Going into the South Africa tour, the right-handed batter knew he would be leading the team in the ODIs due to the absence of regular skipper Rohit Sharma.
However, he found himself at the forefront much earlier than anticipated after Virat Kohli was ruled out with an injury for the second test. Rahul's leadership tenure did not get off to a good start as the hosts beat India comprehensively by seven wickets in that match.
His first match as ODI captain ended with another win for the Proteas. That is 0-2 for Rahul for those keeping score.
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South Africa complete a 31-run win 👏🏻
The hosts go 1-0 up in the three-match ODI series 🎉
Watch the series live on ICC.tv (in select regions)
#SAvIND | bit.ly/SA-IND-1ODI https://t.co/LofDcqnBMa
While the Test match under Rahul's leadership swung back and forth, India's defeat yesterday in the ODI was not very surprising. The visitors slacked off after a decent start and South Africa never let go off the driving seat to inflict another defeat on India.
Going into the second match, here are a few talking points KL Rahul has to address for Team India.
#3 Fragile middle-order: Team India's overdue concern
Middle-order batting has been a major concern for India. It was evident yesterday as well when India's good start, courtesy of Kohli and Shikhar Dhawan, was misutilised by the middle-order.
Ajinkya Rahane and Chesteshwar Pujara were among the bottom three performers amongst the Indian batsmen in the Test series. And yesterday, Shreyas Iyer and Rishabh Pant failed to captialise on the good start. India went from 138/1 to 188/6 in a matter of a few overs.
Here is how KL Rahul, Temba Bavuma and Rassie van der Dussen react to South Africa's win over India.
#SAvIND https://t.co/AMETH5YZJ3
This Indian side has a lot of promising stars who can take the game away from any opposition. But they lack consistency, and this is a more significant concern for India going into the T20 World Cup later this year and the 2023 Cricket World Cup in Australia.
#2 Importance of staying in the game: South Africa's success mantra
After winning the match, South Africa's centurion batsman RVD Dussen said:
"Your currency in batting is runs and milestones, and that's not something that you can sweep under the rug. We stayed in the fight longer; that was the difference between us and India."
South Africa got off to a poor start and runs did not come easily. However, captain Temba Bavuma and Dussen stuck it out in the middle and received their due credit in the later overs.
Highest career batting averages after 30 ODIs:
879 @ 97.66 MEK Hussey (Aus)
1178 @ 73.62 HE van der Dussen (SA)
1179 @ 65.50 KP Pietersen (Eng)
In the second Test as well, South Africa understood the importance of staying on the field. They created pressure on Indian bowling, rotated the strike and did not miss a single chance to put the bad balls away.
#1 KL Rahul's uninspired bowling changes
In the second test after a delayed start on the Day 4, KL introduced Jaspreet Bumrah and Ravichandran Ashwin. While Bumrah troubled Dean Elgar and Dussen, Ashwin looked relatively harmless.
Mohammad Shami came in late but bowled a touch fuller against both batsmen. Shardul Thakur pressured Dussen, but his edges went to the vacant slip cordon.
Similarly, in the first ODI, KL relied heavily on Ashwin and Chahal on a slow-pitch, but both failed to trouble Bavuma and Dussen. He then went to Bumrah and Bhuvneshwar Kumar in the middle overs, leaving the death overs exposed to the relatively inexperienced Shardul Thakur.
He did not use Venkatesh Iyer at all, who is in the team as the designated all-rounder. A total of 86 runs came off the last ten overs, including a 17-run final over from Shardul.
KL Rahul is a promising talent for Indian cricket and is certainly a strong contender for a leadership role in the longer run. But he needs to sit down with Rahul Dravid and learn the small tricks and traits of the captaincy.