South Africa whitewashed India in the ODIs on Sunday. They have clinched the three-match series 2-0. India even lost the test series against South Africa for 2-1. Deepak Chahar’s 54 runs for 34 balls even could not help India to win the last match against SA.
After India’s loss a lot of loopholes were analyzed that accelerated India’s downfall. Let’s have a look at the top 5 reasons.
KL Rahul being a hint less skipper throughout the series
KL Rahul‘s captaincy in the whole series has been very average. The field placements, bowling changes and the other decisions taken by him could not bear any positive result. Trust and faith are two of the elements that were missing on the field. A lack of experience in his captaincy got proven when he removed Shardul Thakur from the bowling scene despite him taking the wicket of Quinton de Kock on Friday. Rahul even failed to encourage the boys that they have been used to under Virat Kohli’s captaincy.
Failure of Indian spinners
Indian spinners Yuzvendra Chahal and R. Ashwin could take only one wicket each in the series despite playing in the Boland Park pitch in Paarl which naturally gives an advantage to the spinners.
Meanwhile, South African bowlers were on top of their game. Tabraiz Shamsi took four wickets while left-arm spinner Keshav Maharaj and off-break bowler Aiden Markram took two wickets with an economy of less than 5.
Poor Batting partnerships
On average, India lost a wicket every 32 runs. The statistics will even go down if Dhawan-Kohli’s partnership of 92 runs (1st ODI) and KL Rahul- Pant’s partnership of 115 runs (2nd ODI) is removed. In the first ODI India scored 265 runs for 8 wickets and in the next one, they scored 287 runs for six wickets.
Sub-standard performance by all rounders
Shardul Thakur’s bowling performance was very weak with an economy of 7.13 and one wickets while Venkatesh Iyer had a very poor performance with just 24 runs and 0 wickets. Iyer had given a great performance in IPL 2021 but failed to show his magic in International cricket. Thakur has given an impressive performance in the lower order but has been missing in the bowling action completely.
Lack of coordination with Bumrah
Bumrah had taken three wickets at an economy rate of 4.25 creating his supremacy over the opponents. Bumrah tried to create some pressure on the Proteas and tried his best to not give runs but the other bowlers emanated a lot of runs. Bumrah is the only top wicket-taker of the series (7 wickets) after which we can only find South African names. The collective economy of other Indian bowlers stands at 6.17 in comparison to Bumrah’s 4.25.
Read more: India vs South Africa 3rd ODI: SA won by 4 runs to complete 3-0 series whitewash
