Watching India play a Test series in South Africa has always been a different experience altogether. Lush green grounds, high-speed tracks and an epic battle between two great sides – elements that make Test cricket more interesting than ever. The current team is surely one of the powerhouses in the longest format of the game but’s it’s an undeniable fact that India haven’t won a single series yet.
7 played, 6 lost, 1 ended in a draw – that’s what the stats say. As both teams gear up to lock horns for the 8th time on the South African soil, let’s recall the positives of the last tour. Though India lost the series 2-1, it witnessed the rise of several superstars.
India tour of South Africa, 2018: It was Kohli’s first-ever South Africa tour as captain and under the guidance of Ravi Shastri, it was believed that the visitors will surely rewrite history. But unfortunately, they couldn’t. They lost the first Test 72 runs in Cape Town and the next one in Centurion by 135 runs.
But they didn’t end the series on a disappointing note. India bounced back in Johannesburg and thumped the hosts by 63 runs.
Rise of Jasprit Bumrah: The right arm quick had become India’s pace sensation by then. It was Bumrah’s first overseas Test series and obviously, he was one of the players to watch out for. He didn’t disappoint the think tank of the team either. With 14 wickets from three matches, he ended the series as the second-highest wicket-taker. Vernon Philander, Kagiso Rabada and Mohammad Shami had picked 15 wickets each.
Dependable Bhuvneshwar: That was the time when Bhuvneshwar was a regular in the Test team and frustrated the home batters with his swing bowling. In the 2018 tour, he scalped 10 wickets from three matches and was the third-highest wicket-taker for India.
Emergence of Hardik Pandya: Just like Bumrah, Hardik was another new face in the South Africa tour. He had established himself as one of the reliable all-rounders. He did an exceptional job with the bat in hand, scoring 119 runs in three matches with 1 half-century.
Kohli in his golden form: Virat Kohli was in red-hot form back in 2018. It’s safe to say that he has earned a stature of a valuable team player, just like Sachin Tendulkar used to be in the 1990s. The Indian skipper was the highest run-getter in the three-match series – 286 runs, one fifty and a hundred. He scored runs at a staggering average of 47.67. He also smashed the most number of boundaries in the entire series – 35.
Mohammed Shami stamped his authority: The 2018 tour witnessed the bowling prowess of Shami on foreign soil. With 15 wickets in three games, the right-arm quick had the second-best bowling average of 17.07, only after former pacer Vernon Philander (15.87). He also bagged a five-wicket haul, in the Johannesburg Test – the only game India won in the tour.
Ashwin, the odd one out: The South African pitches are known for the pace on offer. But Ashwin was the only spinner among the top-10 wicket-takers. He played 2 games and scalped 7 wickets, at a decent average of 30.71.
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