South Africa Test series: What are the odds for India?

Rohit Sharma hasn’t played Test cricket in South Africa since the start of 2018, and never as an opener. (Photo Twitter)

In the 31 years since they embarked on their first tour of South Africa in 1992, India have won at least one Test series in every land where they have played. Except the land of the Protea.

South Africa, therefore, looms as the Final Frontier for the world’s No. 1 Test side, which will again tilt at the windmills in a two-Test showdown beginning on Boxing Day, December 26. It isn’t as if they haven’t had their chances, but India have fallen just short more than once, most recently on their last tour in late 2021 when they won the first Test but surrendered the next two.

What is it about South Africa that India have found impossible to crack? Is it the generous seam movement which the home pacers, more used to the conditions, have used better? Is it the bounce that South Africa’s taller quicks have exploited to the hilt? Is it the swing? Is it the greater resilience and quality of the hosts’ batting line-ups? Actually, it’s a combination of all this, and a certain unshakable belief that in their own backyard, they are more than a handful for most.

And yet, Sri Lanka have won a Test series in South Africa. Sri Lanka, who haven’t so much as threatened to win even a Test match in India. In that should lie the genesis of India’s campaign though typically, Indian sides of the last few years have chosen to internalise rather than look outwards for inspiration and motivation.

Until the untimely injury to Rohit Sharma that kept him out the last time they travelled to South Africa, India would have fancied their chances of breaking their duck in 2021. But with Rohit unavailable for the entire series and skipper Virat Kohli missing the second Test due to a back injury, India blew their chances. Having called the shots in the first Test, their campaign quickly unravelled on pitches of admittedly dubious nature; in both the second and the third Tests, they failed to defend fourth-innings scores of 200-plus despite appreciable assistance for the faster bowlers. Those two losses must certainly have hurt the think-tank in what was Rahul Dravid’s first overseas outing as the head coach.

Dravid returns to South Africa for his first assignment after securing an extension as head coach on the back of India’s stirring run at the 50-over home World Cup that ended in utter heartbreak in Ahmedabad five weeks back. It was under his captaincy that, in 2006, India pulled off their first Test win in South Africa, by 123 runs in Johannesburg. If he can inspire his charges to go one better and register their maiden series triumph, his already impressive reputation will ratchet up a few more notches.

There is no reason why India shouldn’t realistically believe that their time is now. True, they are without Mohammed Shami, the experienced pace ace who had such a wonderful World Cup and who has played in South Africa several times. The ankle injury that has kept the Bengal quick on the sidelines is a definite setback, but India have the resources even otherwise to snaffle the 20 wickets that are a must if they eye defining victories in Centurion and in Cape Town, in the traditional New Year’s Test.

Jasprit Bumrah must have happy memories of South Africa, having made his Test debut there in 2018, while Mohammed Siraj is a more than able understudy gradually threatening to emerge from the shadows and make a name for himself. The strapping Prasidh Krishna, the bustling Mukesh Kumar and all-rounder Shardul Thakur offer supplementary pace options, while in R Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja, there is experience, class, guile and a bucketful of wickets when it comes to the spin department. Even minus Shami, this is as good an attack as there is in world cricket today. The bowling group’s challenge will be to acclimatise to still reasonably alien conditions and to quickly figure out the lengths and the pace that will work on those tracks, though in their favour is the fact that the leaders of the bowling group all have played multiple Tests in South Africa.

The efficacy of the bowling group will have to be matched by the consistency of the batsmen, who haven’t always relished the additional bounce in the South African pitches. Unlike in India of the past when raging turners from day one wasn’t always the norm and therefore first-innings tallies of 500 were far from the exception, par totals in South Africa are maybe a 150 runs fewer. It will be incumbent, therefore, on Rohit and his fellow batsmen to bed in and eke out the 350 runs in the first dig which will allow their bowlers to do their business.

That India have the batsmen to do so is beyond question, but that comes with a few riders. Rohit hasn’t played Test cricket in South Africa since the start of 2018, and never as an opener. Yashasvi Jaiswal, his opening partner, and No. 3 Shubman Gill haven’t been a part of the Test landscape in that country, nor has Shreyas Iyer, scheduled to slot in at No. 5. Given that even experienced hands have found the pace, bounce and movement in South Africa too hot to handle, all of them will have to be at their best against expert bowlers armed with wonderful skillsets and a working knowledge of what works and what doesn’t in their own backyard.

Kohli and KL Rahul will, therefore, loom as central figures alongside Rohit in India’s batting line-up. The former skipper is expected to rejoin the team in Centurion after a quick dash back home, while Rahul’s floundering Test career has been thrown a lifeline in the form of a wicketkeeper-batsman, a role he has performed with aplomb in 50-over cricket. Rahul went out of the Test set-up after a string of failures at the top of the order. By finding a place for him in the middle order, where he might currently be more at home in the red-ball game, the think-tank has given him a massive vote of confidence. It is up to him to repay that faith now.

India will need to play like the No. 1 team in the world if they are to beard the Protean lion in its own den. That’s a daunting proposition, but then again, few worthwhile things in life aren’t, right?