When Virat Kohli’s team pulled off a massive 5-1 scoreline to seal their maiden ODI series win in South Africa in 2018, it was the only occasion that an Indian team won five ODI series in SENA (South Africa). Won. England, New Zealand and Australia) countries. In fact, India had only two previous instances of series wins with five matches outside (Zimbabwe, 5–0 in 2013 and SL, 5–0 in 2017). However, a lot has changed for the Indian ODI set-up since then and it will not be easy for them this time around even though seven members of the 2018 squad are part of the current squad.
More often than not, each bilateral series has a special focus on only a few players to prove themselves individually. However, this time entering the ODI series, each member of the touring squad is faced with an individual challenge to either find themselves once again, to regain their past glory. Find or make a great start to your career.
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And the individual challenge begins with stand-in captain KL Rahul’s role as a batsman and a leader. Rahul took the lead in international cricket for the first time when Virat Kohli was unfit during the second match of the recently concluded three-match Test series. In the ODI series, due to fitness issues of new captain Rohit Sharma, the Karnataka player is again leading the Indian team in the white-ball format. 29-year-old Rahul has to prove himself as an opener. In 15 ODI innings in the last two years, Rahul has scored three tons and five fifties, but there are also six innings in between where he has failed to go beyond 20. So, consistency is something that the captain will desperately seek if India wants to. To avoid a series defeat in the three-match series starting on Wednesday.
Jasprit Bumrah has also been lucky to have got the vice-captaincy responsibility due to the Mumbai Indians skipper’s absence from the series or else Rahul would have been in his place. The Ahmedabad pacer is also not shying away from talking about his future captaincy but for now his main focus could be on rediscovering his strong strength across all formats of the game. The last time Bumrah took three wickets in an ODI, he was far behind in the 2019 World Cup in England against Sri Lanka. He didn’t play a single match in 2021 and 2020 was also not great for him, he took just five wickets in 9 matches. Not only that, his economy rate also suffered (which was 5.62 RPO in this period which was not in sync with his career economy of 4.65) and the champion bowler should be mindful of that aberration.
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Apart from Rahul and Bumrah, there is another senior player who could benefit from Rohit’s absence, his former regular teammate Shikhar Dhawan. The Delhi batsman may have captained the team in Sri Lanka last year (when the main team toured England for a high-profile Test series) but at the age of 36, if he fails to deliver, he will be given more Chances are not available. In Rainbow Nation.
The Indian spin trio also face contrasting challenges on individual fronts. While senior-most Ravichandran Ashwin is returning to the ODI team after a gap of four years, another officiant Jayant Yadav knows he may not get another chance to prove his mettle in this format. Leg-spinner Yuzvendra Chahal will be desperate to show off his wicket-taking skills in the middle overs and show the world that his exclusion from the T20 World Cup squad was an unfair call by the selectors.
Like Ashwin and Dhawan, Bhuvneshwar Kumar is another senior member of the current team, who should also be aware of the fact that this series is a golden opportunity for him at this stage of his career. From September 2019 to February 2021, the Meerut fast bowler did not play a single match for India. Since his return, Bhuvi has taken 9 wickets in just five matches, but he has been a bit costly of late.
While Ruturaj Gaikwad and Venkatesh Iyer have played T20Is for India, ODIs and that too in South Africa will be a different ball game altogether. Ishan Kishan, Mohammad Siraj, Prashant Krishna, Suryakumar Yadav and Deepak Chahar may have played a couple of ODIs in their careers so far, but now they need to showcase themselves as a serious substitute in ODI cricket. All of them need a great performance in the three-match series.
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Shreyas Iyer, Shardul Thakur and Rishabh Pant are in similar boats despite being at different stages of their respective careers. The only thing they have in common is that they all have played not more than 15 but less than 30 ODIs in their journey so far and are yet to fully establish themselves as an automatic choice in the playing XI. Of course, no one doubts his ability, but a few match-winning attempts against the Proteas could allow him to settle down a bit more comfortably in this format.
And last but not least, the one player who will be the eye-catcher in this series, who will also have to provide much-needed proof as the leading batsman of this format, is King Kohli. The lack of international hundreds for more than two years has put the former India captain unusually in the limelight as a batsman, but more than that, all eyes will be on him as a big politician in the team. How do you adapt to your new role? In that sense, it will be very interesting to see if Kohli can emulate the role of MS Dhoni in the ODI set-up, when the former India skipper stepped down from captaincy in 2016 and became Mahi bhai for all.
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