The Indian cricket team got crushed by the South African cricket team in the first test match of the 2-match series which was played at SuperSport Park Cricket Stadium, Centurion. The Proteas proved themselves better than the visitors in all the three segments whether it is bowling, batting or fielding and took lead by 1-0 after winning the match by an innings and 32 runs.
The Indian team could manage only 245 runs in their first innings and that too because KL Rahul played a mature and patient knock of 101 runs otherwise it would have been impossible for theIndian squad to touch the 200 mark. The Indian bowlers also failed in restricting the Proteas batters and the hosts scored 408 runs in their first innings. The performance of the Indian batters was poorer in the second innings as they could manage only 131 and only two batters, Virat Kohli (76 runs) and Shubman Gill (26 runs) were able to touch the two-digit mark.
The Indian skipper Rohit Sharma was very disappointed with the performance of his team and he accepted that his team was not good enough to win. He added that in the first innings, they reached that total because KL Rahul batted so well but they were not able to use the conditions in their favour during bowling and then once again they failed with bat in the second innings. He added that if the Indian team has to win the test matches, then the whole team has to perform collectively which they didn’t.
Rohit Sharma slammed his batting unit and said that the Indian batters were challenged but they couldn’t adapt well and they didn’t bat well in both the innings because of which they are standing as the losing side. He also emphasized on the need of understanding the opposition and their strengths in order to face them in an effective manner.
He said that they don’t have many positives to take from this game which got over in just 3 days but KL Rahul certainly showed them how to bat in these conditions.
However, the skipper was not much critical of his bowling unit as most of them travelled to South Africa for the first time and most importantly now they need to regroup and get ready for the next test match.