Former Pakistan captain Salman Butt has stated that Team India got their approach wrong in South Africa entirely, specifically in the batting order. Butt opined on India’s five batsmen theory, pointing out that three out of five batsmen went into the series where their forms came under the scanner.
However, India backed Cheteshwar Pujara and Ajinkya Rahane in all three Tests despite their poor forms where they could only manage one fifty each. Captain Virat Kohli also failed to do well in all the innings, scoring 161 in two Tests, but could not score a century.
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While speaking on his YouTube channel, he said: “India need to rethink their approach. Both form and experience matter. But what we saw in South Africa was that Rahane and Pujara were preferred over in-form players. On seamer-friendly pitches, you are relying on experienced players who are out of form. In addition, you are going in with only five specialist batters. Of the five, there were question marks on the form of at least three players. This was going to make life very difficult, which is exactly what we saw.”
According to Salman Butt, India’s batting mostly depended on Rohit Sharma and Kohli when he was in form. But the South Africa series has exposed their weakness as well.
He added: “When Rohit Sharma is in the team and when Kohli is in form, they bat so well that they dwarf the weaknesses of the Indian batting. However, here, Rohit was absent due to injury. Kohli is in decent form but is not getting big scores. There was thus greater responsibility on the other batters, but their response was not up to expected standards.”
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Meanwhile, he also admitted that the bowlers did a great job as well. But South Africa registered the three-match series 2-1, chasing down 212 with seven wickets in hand on Day 4 of the third Test in Cape Town as well.
“In the bowling as well, India got movement in friendly conditions. But pace is also a weapon. Once the ball was not doing too much, apart from Bumrah, the others lacked genuine pace. There was not enough venom in the attack. Shami was also effective only where there was movement. India missed Siraj as well (in the 3rd Test due to injury),” Salman Butt concluded.
