South Africa vs India 2013: The battle is already lost for India

India simply don’t have enough experience to outclass South Africa

Many years back, during matches between Modern School, New Delhi (Gautam Gambhir and Unmukt Chand studied there) and Delhi Public School, the supporters of DPS used to chant a slogan – “We play Modern, just for practice”. In a discussion about the chances of India winning this series, a friend of mine implied the same analogy. South Africa will toy with India in their conditions. He insisted that it is very difficult to beat South Africa on their soil, owing to the fact that Indian squad is relying only on three players having exposure of their bouncy pitches.

These three are Yuvraj Singh, MS Dhoni and Zaheer Khan. But Yuvraj is not in the best of form, Zaheer Khan has made a comeback based on his seniority, and Dhoni is not a very convincing player on bouncy wickets.

Many supporters are of the view that it is imperative that we must be able to put big scores on the board. This should not be difficult considering our strong batting, right? Here lies the catch. Shikhar Dhawan is impulsive, and no one really knows when he will mishit any delivery and lose his wicket! Suresh Raina has set a benchmark of 35-40 runs, and that’s all.

Sir Jadeja is not treated as a regular big hitting player, so when it comes to increasing the run rate, he is not the right man for the job. The other senior player Yuvraj Singh is also not in good form as he was seen struggling during all the recent contests. Fans are really concerned how Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma and MS Dhoni would carry the team. In case Cheteshwar Pujara is given chance, and he plays his solid technique based game, he might be able to contribute, but expecting miracles against the killer South African attack is not advisable.

On a positive note, even if our boys are able to give a reasonable target to the opponent, our bowling is poor. Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Umesh Yadav and R Ashwin would not be able to do much as they do not have any experience of bowling on the bouncy tracks of South Africa. So the whole onus is lying on the shoulders of Zaheer Khan! Though he has made a comeback, this time he will be bowling to world class batsmen like Hashim Amla. And we simply do not have anyone to support Zaheer Khan.

Thus, overall, the proposition is not at all favorable for captain MS Dhoni, and it will really be interesting to see how will he cope with Hashim Amla, Jacques Kallis, AB de Villiers, Dale Steyn, Vernon Philander and Graeme Smith.

I honestly believe that this series is exclusively meant for our young bowlers – to give them exposure of the bouncy pitches and to sharpen their skills. For the long run, even if India is not able to register a win, the tour should be taken as an investment for the future. Loads of good wishes to Team India!