India vs. South Africa Cricket

The Indian team is certainly going into a new mindset and changing their thinking but I don’t think that the mindset of those around us has changed. There have been three scores of under 50 in Tests in South Africa.

Though the Nagpur Test finished inside three days, I wonder how it had anything to do with a “poor” pitch as stated by the ICC. But it hard to fathom, how South Africa were bowled out for 79 runs in the first innings, on a pitch where India piled 219 runs. ICC officials on Tuesday labelled the Nagpur pitch as “poor” and Mohali also leaned towards the same.

The state of the pitch is something Virat Kohli is not interested in discussing, the Indian skipper believing his side have not received the credit they deserve for steamrollering the world’s best Test team, who will once again be without premier strike bowler Dale Steyn due to a groin injury.

A review of Day 3 of the third Test between India and South Africa. “Unfortunately we’re not as good as Ashwin”.

“My cricket started here with the state team”.

“There is nothing wrong with a pitch that affords some degree of turn on the first day of a match though anything more than occasional unevenness of bounce at this stage of the match is not acceptable”. India have won a series and they have outplayed us. In four innings in this series, South Africa have scored just 557 runs.

But while the match-winning heroics of off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin have been widely praised, much of the coverage has been devoted to a row over the quality of the pitches which have left batsmen floundering. “It is a special opportunity for me to captain the Indian side at my home ground”, Kohli said when asked about his feeling of leading the side at Kotla. Decent performers such as Dean Elgar up the order and J-P Duminy in the middle will hope to click one last time. However, the Indian camp has strongly defended the conditions with Ravi Shastri, the Team director, questioning the batsmen’s ability to apply themselves. If the pitch is deemed poor, a penalty will be imposed, likely to be in the region of US$15,000. I don’t see anyone complaining, it’s only some of them who have never played the game who are complaining. Where does it tell me in the rule book it can only swing and seam? What we should be criticising and discussing is the reason why South Africa’s veteran trio of Hashim Amla, AB de Villiers and Faf du Plessis have failed terribly in whites on this tour. But like Amit Mishra a day earlier, Kohli betrayed a sense of brewing injustice at the perceived ease of India’s series win against South Africa. “Whatever can be done will be done only next year as far as the improvement of wickets are concerned”, the curator said on condition of anonymity.