India vs South Africa
This post is the result of the comments made by Virat Kohli on the tight schedule that Indian team is going through. He complained that there are just 2 days available to practice for South Africa series. When we thought all was good, Virat Kohli Team’s captain speaks his unhappiness about scheduling back to back series and no time gap for Bigger Series. BCCI and ICC should’ve done something about this but now it’s too late. With the new Test league coming up let’s hope that that will reduce this unplanned scheduling and give us a prepared and well contested Test Series. That Said, I am very hopeful that India will be able to give their best performance ever in the history India South Africa series.
Will India’s Dream run Continue?
Indian Team is on a roll and things look comfortable to beat the Lankans yet again and complete the Ninth Successive Test Series Win and will continue their dream run of making it 10th Test Series win when they lock horns against South Africa in the New Year. 2018 will kick off with what should be most thrilling and challenging Series in long time for India. It’s not going to be easy for India to win the series against mighty Africans that too in their Home Turf. To make things harder the series is scheduled not more than 10 days after Sri Lanka series. We are playing Sri Lanka twice in six months once away and now home.
What if the series was limited to only Test Series and have a one month break for the South African Tour. Sri Lanka series ends on December 24th leaving just 10 days for first test and 4 days before India pack their bags to Dark continent.
Let’s look at the past performance of India in South Africa!
- 1992/93 Winner-South Africa 1-0 (4)
- 1996/97 Winner-South Africa 2-0 (3)
- 2001/02 Winner-South Africa 1-0 (2)
- 2006/07 Winner-South Africa 2-1 (3)
- 2010/11 drawn 1-1 (3)
- 2013/14 Winner-South Africa 1-0 (2)
From the history we can see that India could never win a series against South Africans in their backyard. The closest they came was in the year 2010/11 which is best performance managing a draw series. Lights of Sachin, Dravid, VVS Laxman and Zaheer Khan played their part in the Drawn series.
With the thirst of winning first ever series still running high India needs to pick the best squad. Those who are good enough to play in the flat pitches. Bowlers who can hit the deck hard to pick wickets. We have been seeing a good amount of preparation by Pujara and Ashwin by playing English county. But most of the players have either played domestic cricket of International cricket in various formats.
Now all that can happen is resting some key players for the ODI and T20 matches against Lankans and play India A kind of team with them. Separate training camp should be there at least for two weeks from 10th December to 24th December. Every member who is playing in South Africa can be a part of the coaching camp. Then the team can rest for a week before leaving to South Africa after new year!
