The Proteas defeated Men in Blue by 5 wickets, contrary to the expectations of Indian fans who thought we would win our match against them and advance to the top 4 of the main event.
To guarantee their place in the semi-finals, India must stage a stunning comeback against Bangladesh and Zimbabwe next week. It is debatable whether we are a champion squad capable of challenging each of our opponents in the Top 4 of the main event.
To respond to that query, I would say that under fast and bouncy conditions, we still fall short of teams like New Zealand, South Africa, and Australia.
#TeamIndia fought hard but it was South Africa who won the match.
We will look to bounce back in our next game of the #T20WorldCup . 👍 👍
Scorecard ▶️ https://t.co/KBtNIk6J16 #INDvSA pic.twitter.com/Q6NGoZokuE
— BCCI (@BCCI) October 30, 2022
First off, a selection error in the previous game lost us the game since Deepak Hooda was brought in instead of Axar Patel, and we failed to give Hooda a single over in which case Pant may have participated given his prior success in Australian conditions.
Second, KL Rahul and Rohit Sharma’s recent performances have been the talk of the town. Rahul doesn’t appear to be in good form, and Rohit has only scored one half-century in his previous 10 T20I innings.
Hardik Pandya and Dinesh Karthik also need to return to form fast if India is to perform well in the showpiece event. There may be situations where you might lose early wickets, so we need them to be a little rescued, thus we must focus on that division.
Last but not least, Indian spinners like Ashwin and Axar must contribute with wickets and support fast bowlers in the squad because we lack consistency in taking wickets as a spinner. If we can check this box reasonably well in the following games, we can become a bowler-strong squad.
In the future games of the T2o World Cup, let’s see how India’s voyage turned out.