Each of the three Tests in South Africa has presented India with a chance to win, none with as much promise as the one at the Wanderers. A mere glance at the<\/p>\n
scorecard will confirm how Ajinkya Rahane and Bhuvneshwar Kumar have put India in a winning position on Day 3.<\/p>\n
But to think they didn\u2019t get Virat Kohli\u2019s backing because he was either hung up over \u2018current form\u2019 or swayed by bowling conditions is a sad reflection on how<\/p>\n
little thought is put into selection on a tour of such importance.<\/p>\n
It remains to be seen if Kohli will accept he had erred or adamantly puts it down to plain luck and the advantage of hindsight. After all, Kohli did mention he<\/p>\n
doesn\u2019t pay heed to \u2018talk of the town\u2019, even if that included cricket greats and not just journalists who aren\u2019t thought to be qualified enough to write about cricket<\/p>\n
as they haven\u2019t played the game.<\/p>\n
This isn\u2019t a collective \u2018I-told-you-so\u2019 moment for those who were scoffed at for giving an opinion but vindication of the skills Rahane and Kumar possess.<\/p>\n
Dropping a bowler who had taken the top four South African wickets in the first innings at Cape Town just because Centurion wasn\u2019t seaming enough was a slap<\/p>\n
on Kumar\u2019s bowling ability.<\/p>\n
It sent a wrong message that even your best effort can\u2019t save your place in the next Test. Not just his bowling, Kumar\u2019s heart with the bat was easily forgotten<\/p>\n
too. He had scores of 25 and 13 in Cape Town, but more importantly featured in two stands — 99 (with Hardik Pandya in the first innings) and 49 (with R Ashwin<\/p>\n
in the second innings). That partnership with Pandya is still India\u2019s best in this series. That too didn\u2019t matter when names were weighed for selection for the<\/p>\n
Centurion Test.<\/p>\n
Here, Kumar stitched a 55-run partnership with Rahane before raising an invaluable 35-run stand with Mohammed Shami that has allowed India to come out with<\/p>\n
a spring in their steps. Oh, and Kumar also took three wickets, including AB de Villiers\u2019 with possibly the ball of the series.<\/p>\n
Rahane\u2019s was an open-and-shut case, not just because he had the highest average among Indian batsmen outside Asia but he is the soldier you need on your<\/p>\n
side in a battle. And this tour has been nothing short of a war. To give away that position to a batsman who has no credentials outside Asia was a decision that<\/p>\n
made even the South Africans to scratch their heads. Once again, on a difficult pitch, Rahane showed why he is the man for all seasons, scoring 48.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Each of the three Tests in South Africa has presented India with a chance to win, none with as much promise as the one at the Wanderers. A mere glance at the scorecard will confirm how Ajinkya Rahane and Bhuvneshwar Kumar have put India in a winning position on Day 3. But to think they […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19995,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[122],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19994","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19994","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19994"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19994\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19996,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19994\/revisions\/19996"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19995"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19994"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19994"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19994"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}