Can India win in South Africa this time?
The only country where India has not won a test series is south Africa. Yes, that is true…India is playing test cricket with South Africa since 1992 so that is almost 30 years and the wait is still on. In fact, the 1st ever test win in South Africa was in 2006 at the Wander’s in Johannesburg — after almost playing one and half decade against the south Africa.
Now why, you may ask, it is taking this long for team India (who has been winning outside India for a while now — in recent memory they won against 2 of the toughest opponent in their own backyard — 2021 in Australia and are leading in England 2–1 in 2021, with 1 test from this series to be played in 2022).
Well, for a start in my opinion, the teams who toured the South Africa in 1990s were simply not good enough overall, specially in the bowling department. In the 1996/97 tour, if you look at the team — there is only 1, Anil Kumble who can be termed as world-class bowler and he too had a very average series and has struggled to take wickets — In 6 innings he took 8 wickets at an average of 48 wicket a piece. Compare that to Allen Donald who was the chief destroyer of the Indian batting — he took 20 Wickets in just 6 innings at 15.95. Also the strike rate of Allen Donald was almost at 35 against Anil Kumble’s 116. This shows why South Africa won the series 2–0, their star bowler ran through the opposition and India’s star bowler couldn't.
While it maybe unfair to compare the leg spinner on a fast bouncy wickets which are tailor-made for fast bowling to a fast bowler — the above stats shows why South Africa can be a hard place to win if you don’t have a quality fast bowling. Even the best spinner, statistically and/or otherwise ever produced by India Anil Kumble — who has taken more than 600 wickets — Has never won a single man of the match in south Africa in test cricket and he toured to south Africa 4 times. This makes 1 thing clear — you would need a fast bowling power to win tests in South Africa, and simply having a top spinner is no guarantee of success over there.
I think above statistical sample is clue why India could not win a single test till 2006 — the best ever spinner struggled and there was no similar world-class fast bowler who ran through the strong south African side (with exception of V. Prasad who took heaps of wickets in Durban in 1996) as Allen Donald in 1997 or Dale Steyn did to Indian batting, in 2013. Only once-in-a-life performance from S Sreeshanth won India their 1st ever test in 2006.
In Batting, India usually was dependent on 1–2 players in the team to perform and the rest of the batting line-up would usually struggle. Even some of India’s top batsman ever like VVS Laxman (1997, 2001,2006) , Sourav Ganguly (1997, 2001,2006), MS Dhoni (2006, 2010,2014) didn’t have a single test century to their name— despite touring south Africa multiple times. Only true greats like Sachin, Virat and Rahul Dravid have scored hundreds and when they did scored hundred, India fared much better — for example Rahul Dravid’s 148 helped India draw the 3rd test at Johannesburg in 1997 tour and same can be said about Sachin’s hundred at Centurion in 2010 and Virat’s 119 in 2013.
So now we know the reason of why Indian teams struggled in the past, can we be more optimistic in 2021 — after all this current lot of Indian team has some special gifted players and their opponent — the south African lineup don’t have legends like Dale Steyn, Allen Donald or Hashim Amla or ABD?
In my view, yes — the current Indian team can be the 1st ever test team to win the test series in the south Africa. And the reason for this optimism lies 1st in the fast bowling department- India seems to have good mix of seam bowling option (Mohammad Shami), Hit-the-deck bowler (Siraj/Ishant Sharma) or Swing bowler (J Bumrah or S Thakur) — this is good well-round pace bowling attack. Mix it with a off-spin bowling engineer — R Ashwin and this overall bowling attack looks capable of taking 20 wickets. And mix with this the all-rounder abilities of S Thakur, and Rishabh Pant (wicketkeeping + batting) and this team looks, at least on paper, a well-balanced side.
On Batting front, with recent success in overseas tour in England, is a right-handed pair of K Rahul and Rohit Sharma. They both had a successful run of late and can draw lot of confidence from their recent success — in foreign conditions, with seam and swing. After this formidable pair, there is less predictable middle-order — with Cheteshwar Pujara, Virat Kohli, Ajinkya Rahane, Shreyas Ayer and Rishabh Pant. None of them can claim they are in rich form — with Ajinkya Rahane who has been struggling for runs across countries, Australia, India, England and again In India, in Indian conditions — but both him and Virat do have a fair bit of experience and has done well occasionally in south Africa. But with no bowler of the caliber of Donald/Steyn — they may just get a way.
In conclusion, the 2021–22 tour of South Africa can well be a historical one if Indian team can become the 1st ever Indian team to go and beat South Africa in South Africa — and if this do happens, India will become a proud cricket team who has won the test match and test series against all test-playing nations against whom they are playing test cricket.
