IND vs SA Tests: Rohit and team eye to end 31-year-long wait for test series win

After the ODI World Cup final loss Indian skipper Rohit Sharma has his eyes on ending Indias long wait for a test series win on South African soilThe twomatch test series between India and South Africa starting on December 26 will be Indias ninth away series in South Africa since 1992 Rohit will have a crucial responsibility of winning the series against the Proteas at their homeHeavy rains have been predicted on the first two days of the first test at Supersport Park need to subside The Centurion pitch provides bounce and is one of the fastest pitches in South Africa In the last 50 over World Cup skipper Rohit at best would have emulated Kapil Dev and Mahendra Singh Dhoni but if he and his men manage to pull off a coup in this country he would stand first among the equalsMohammed Azharuddin 1992 failed so did Sachin Tendulkar 1996 and Sourav Ganguly 2001 Rahul Dravid 200607 and Dhoni 201011 and 201314 won Test matches and so did Virat Kohli 201819 and 202122 but none of them could win the elusive series in South AfricaAlso ReadIN PHOTOS IND vs SA Tests Players to score most runsIn Temba Bavumas South Africa they have a team that has a crackfast bowling attack which could make some of the young Indian batters look like cats on hot tin roofFor Yashasvi Jaiswal it will be the first big test against a quality attack comprising Kagiso Rabada Lungi Ngidi Marco Jansen and Gerald Coetzee There will be way more bounce than what he got in the Caribbean and the variable nature of it will ask him probing questionsSimilarly Shubman Gill and Shreyas Iyer who have proven their mettle on subcontinental pitches need to up their game in more challenging batting conditionsIyer especially with his welldocumented weakness against the short ball will have to churn out something really specialCoach Rahul Dravid doesnt want Jaiswal and Gill to change their style but wants them to develop game awareness and play as per the need of the hourWe encourage the players to play in a manner they feel most comfortable In the end they are judged by the results they produce They know that Dravid saidBut that freedom comes with a riderWe want to encourage them in the way they play but also keeping the conditions in mind and certain sort of tactical thing they have to adopt when they play in South AfricaThe nature of the ball how it behaves over 80 overs shots that they play early and later on I think its about finding the balance between having cricket smarts to read the game and understand the situation and of course allowing you to express yourselfAlso ReadIN PHOTOS IND vs SA Tests Players with most wicketsHopefully they make smart decisions the coach had said on Christmas eve But all said and done Indias performance will depend on three factors how well the skipper executes his hook and pull shots for how much time Virat Kohli decides to leave balls outside the offstump and how well the team covers up Mohammed Shamis absenceThe skiddy Mukesh Kumar looked better at the nets but the extra bounce available makes a case for Prasidh Krishna Bavuma the retiring Dean Elgar the stylish Aiden Markram the exciting Tony de Zorzi and the dogged Keegan Petersen constitute a good batting unit that can make Indian bowlers toil hardKL Rahul donning the big gloves is another aspect of this game The team management handing over responsibilities to Rahul can be viewed from two different prisms The positive one would be the faith in his ability as a gloveman in 50over cricket and hoping that he can do it for 90 overs in a dayThe notsopositive aspect will be the sheer desperation not to lose that extra batter in Iyer and also not looking at the bigger picture that Rahul could find it extremely difficult to stand up to Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja in a months time against England at home provided Ishan Kishan isnt back from his mental health break It will be another away Test match which Ashwin might have to miss because of conditions and combinationsAt Supersport Park it normally takes three and a half to four days to achieve results and if the toss happens on the second day after a washout on opening day batting first will surely be a very difficult propositionTeamsIndia Rohit Sharma captain Yashasvi Jaiswal Shubman Gill Virat Kohli KL Rahul wk Shreyas Iyer Ravindra Jadeja Shardul Thakur Jasprit Bumrah Mohammed Siraj Mukesh Kumar Prasidh Krishna KS Bharat wk Abhimanyu Easwaran 2nd TestSouth Africa Temba Bavuma captain Aiden Markram Tony de Zorzi Dean Elgar Keegan Petersen Kyle Verreynne wk Tristan Stubbs wk Nandre Burger Marco Jansen Wiaan Mulder Gerald Coetzee Keshav Maharaj Kagiso Rabada Lungi Ngidi David BedinghamMatch Starts 130 pm ISTWith PTI Inputs