10 players who have always feasted on the Indian bowling attack
Ricky Ponting and Jacques Kallis were dominant against the Indian bowling. The fans of “Team India” make for a curious case study. With nothing but a victory to satiate their unending appetite, they dish out praise and brickbats in equal measure at every given opportunity. Their passion for the game and love for their side manifests in manners that are seldom seen elsewhere. From torso’s painted in the tri-colour to flinging bottles from the stands, the spectrum of emotions is there for all to witness.An offspring of these emotions are the popular “urban legends” that crop up with repeated regularity. That a hundred from Sachin would lead to India’s downfall was one such superstition that spawned in the last leg of the maestro’s career. Similarly, every time the opposition went on a run scoring spree there are chants of “out-of-form batsmen roar back to form when playing India” and “that batsmen the world over always make merry when playing India”.With AB De Villiers and Quinton De Kock scoring heavily in the ODI series against India, these chants have resurfaced. De Kock, out of form in the World Cup and on the verge of losing his place in the side, was sent for an “A” tour to India. With his confidence back after the “A” series, he was back in the thick-of-things while taking the attack right back to the Indians.And the loyal Indian fan can narrate several such instances while drawing collective consensus that the Indians regularly dish out a healthy dose of “buffet” bowling. From South Africa to Pakistan, the world’s batsmen, they claim, seem to take a particular liking to the Indian brand of bowling.Despite the burning desire to disprove these notions with ample examples of India’s bowling bravado, we choose to resist the temptation and instead, review the so called “merry-makers”.Therefore, here’s a look at 10 batsmen that have scored heavily against India in ODI Cricket.
#10 Quinton De Kock
The biggest talking point amongst Indian fans involves batsmen that tend to score only against their team. De Kock is one such batsman that seems to possess the uncanny knack of scoring a heap of runs when facing off against the Indian bowlers.
In 9 matches against India, the opening-batsman has scored an astonishing 5 hundreds. Three of those hundreds came in consecutive matches (on India’s tour to South Africa in 2013), placing him in the elite company of only five batsmen to have scored centuries in three successive ODIs (the others being Zaheer Abbas, Saeed Anwar, Herschelle Gibbs and AB De Villiers).
Despite being early days in his international career, the 22 year-old has been ear-marked for greatness. His 667 runs against India have come at an average of 61.53. In comparison, his ODI career average stands at 39.86 – a clear indication of the amount of confidence he exudes when playing India.