Agencies/Johannesburg
Gaining in confidence with every series, India’s in-form young batsmen are set to be put through their sternest test this season when the team takes on South Africa in a three-match ODI series, starting with today’s opening match. |
It is an ODI contest with context but that has got nothing to do with the political intrigue that led to this tour being shortened.
Nor is it just another three-match series between the number one and number five ranked sides.
This affair has a certain context, all of it pertaining to what happens within the boundary ropes. For Team India, it will be an exercise to reaffirm faith in their young batsmen. This is the same bunch that has been busy lighting up cricket grounds with some breathtaking stroke-play throughout the year.
Shikhar Dhawan, Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli, each have scored more than thousand runs in ODIs this calendar year, each of them averaging over fifty.
There can be two ways to look at this statistic. First, they have scored runs in India, England, West Indies and Zimbabwe, in different conditions.
Their confidence is sky-high at the moment and in their respective purple patches, all they can think of is playing the next match and batting on.
The hosts will be eager to unleash Dale Steyn, Morne Morkel, Vernon Philander and Jacques Kallis at the first available opportunity. Both Steyn and Kallis have been included in the squad for this three-match series, after sitting out of the third (and last) ODI against Pakistan.
South Africa lost that three-match rubber, their first loss against Pakistan at home. Similarly, India too have never won a bilateral ODI series in South Africa and the Men in Blue will want to take heart from their archrivals’ success.
Indian skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni admitted on the eve of the match that “getting used to the pace and bounce” in South African conditions will be the biggest challenge for his young team.
“One of the big challenges is to get used to the pace and bounce. And if you are new to the international circuit, then it becomes more of a challenge. The reason being, in India even on the best of wickets you don’t get the same pace, or even bowlers who can generate similar pace and bounce.
“So it makes slightly more difficult for the players who have just made their debut in the international arena,” Dhoni told reporters at yesterday’s pre-match press conference.
Dhoni’s South African counterpart, AB de Villiers, didn’t make any bones about the fact that the hosts are “under pressure” against the formidable Indian side. “We are under pressure, playing in our own country and that is a bit unusual for us,” De Villiers said.
While admitting that losing the ODI series against Pakistan has dented their confidence, the South African skipper made it a point to state that they are certainly not underdogs as being dubbed in some quarters.
“We have just lost a series at home, so the confidence is not very high. Some of the knowledgeable people will say that we are underdogs. But there is no way we will stand back and allow that to happen. There is no chance we will accept that. At home we cannot afford to be called the underdogs,” De Villiers tried putting up a brave front.
The skipper said he expects his team to perform to their full potential at home against a team that’s not known to do well in these conditions where there is a lot of pace and bounce on offer.