We are already into the 3rd match of the India v South Africa series, and frankly, India could not have got on to a worse start. Nobody really expected India to play as abjectly as they did in Cuttack, least of all, the crowd.
While there can be no excuses for the crowd behavior at Cuttack – where plastic bottles were thrown into the ground by a sizeable section of the crowd, the fact is that the Indian cricketers have once again failed to live up to the hype surrounding them.
Indian cricket fans don’t expect their team to win every match, but they want their side to put up a good fight every time – that is something we did not see, as the Indian team simply surrendered, all too meekly. So nobody should be too surprised at what followed in Cuttack.
Indeed, if the Indian cricket team continues to perform as they have done so far, we can only expect more such crowd disturbances in the future. Indian cricket fans are highly emotional people – as it is, they pay a fortune to watch their heroes fight it out against the best in international cricket. So one can only imagine their disgust when their heroes lose as meekly as they did in Cuttack.
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For the good of Indian cricket, one really does hope that the Indian team puts up a real fight tomorrow in Kolkata. The series may have been lost, but there is a plenty of pride at stake. A 3-0 whitewash in a T20 series in India is simply unthinkable and for Indian cricket fans, quite unbearable.
But what can MS Dhoni do? He is handicapped by having literally a one-man bowling attack. Apart from R Ashwin, none of the other bowlers in the Indian attack are any good. Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Mohit Sharma and S. Arvind are military medium pacers at best.
It’s shocking that the India management has chosen not to select its two fast bowlers Umesh Yadav and Varun Aaron – it simply doesn’t make sense. The Indian attack holds no threat whatsoever for the South Africans. AB De Villiers, Faf du Plessis and co. know that they only need to play out Ashwin, the rest of the attack is ripe for the picking.
Also, one fails to understand why India’s most consistent batsman Ajinkya Rahane is forced to sit out of the side. Dhoni has looked like a shadow of her former self and it’s clear that he is close to the end of his career. It remains to be seen if he quits on his own or is given the final push by the selectors. One cannot see Dhoni lasting long as the Indian captain if the team continues to play as poorly as it has done so far.
The Teams
India: 1 Rohit Sharma, 2 Shikhar Dhawan 3 Virat Kohli, 4 Suresh Raina, 5 MS Dhoni (capt, wk), 6 Ambati Rayudu, 7 R Ashwin, 8 & 9 Axar Patel/Amit Mishra/Harbhajan Singh, 10 Bhuvneshwar Kumar, 10 Mohit Sharma/S Aravind
South Africa: 1 AB de Villiers (wk), 2 Hashim Amla, 3 Faf du Plessis (capt), 4 JP Duminy, 5 Khaya Zondo, 6 Farhaan Behardien, 7 Chris Morris, 8 Albie Morkel, 8 Marchant de Lange/Kagiso Rabada, 9 Kyle Abbott, 10, 11 Imran Tahir/Eddie Leie
Match Conditions
It has been raining off and on over the last couple of days in Kolkata, so we expect to get some showers during the match. As far as the pitch is concerned, it is a typical Eden Gardens track – a batsman’s paradise. Expect 200 plus scores tomorrow with the side batting second having all the advantage as they would know exactly how many to get. We expect a full house tomorrow, despite the fact that India have already lost the series as everybody knows how much the people of Kolkata love their cricket.
Watch India take on South Africa in the final T20 at Eden Gardens, Kolkata at 7:00 PM this Thursday live on Star Sports!
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