Johannesburg — India may have a more battled tested and stronger looking batting line-up than South Africa on paper, but without a good start from the openers, even their powerful middle-order risks being run over by the home team’s speed merchants.
In Rohit Sharma’s absence, newly appointed vice-captain, KL Rahul will partner Mayank Agarwal at the of the order for the tourists, both grateful for the extra time afforded to India to prepare in conditions that Rahul said were very different from any other country.
“Australia has pace and bounce, but it’s different here, these are challenging pitches, there’s tennis ball bounce. The pitches are spongy and then it starts to quicken,” Rahul remarked on Friday.
Rahul is grateful for the two matches worth of experience he got in 2018, when he played at SuperSport Park and the Wanderers, the same venues that will host the first two Tests of this summer’s series. But even then, those surfaces behaved in contrasting fashion. “When we played here, it started slow, got quicker and then got slow again,” he remarked about the Centurion ground.
Indeed the pitch for that Test, angered the home team, who thought it was more Hyderabad than Highveld. They won nevertheless, claiming the series while doing so.
The Wanderers surface for the third Test was declared dangerous by the International Cricket Council, with play stopped at different stages, with the ball reacting off the surface inconsistently and players being struck on the body.
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It all means that batters on both sides are more wary this time. “The focus here, like it is in any country for an opener, is to play close to the body, leave well outside the off-stump and just get through the new ball.”
It’s in that area where India will miss Sharma. He’s been exceptional in 2021. A reformed player, since being handed the opening slot in 2019, Sharma reigned in his natural aggression - which has made him such a potent ‘white ball’ batter - and tightened his defence, showing patience many thought he didn’t have. It led him to scoring over 900 runs this year, making him the mainstay of the Indian batting line-up.
With the two bowling attacks so evenly matches, the three match series that starts Sunday is shaping up as one in which the more successful batting unit will emerge triumphant.
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South Africa probably has the more accomplished opening combination in Dean Elgar and Aiden Markram - the side’s two leading run scorers in Tests this year - but for the rest, there’s a fragility to the home team’s batting.
For India, Rahul and Agarwal are an untested combination. They’ve opened alongside one another in three Tests in 2019, with a first innings stand of 32 against the West Indies in Kingston, the best they’ve managed.
Below them however, India look powerful with the resolute Cheteshwar Pujara, the skipper Virat Kohli, Rishabh Pant and whoever of Ajinkya Rahane, Shreyas Iyer or Hanuma Vihari all capable of dominating the homeside.
IOL Sport