Although India could not make history by getting their first Test series win in South Africa, they will be fairly satisfied with the events of the last few days. Despite having their backs to the wall after a defeat in Centurion, India showed character by bouncing back in Cape Town and getting their first-ever Test win at the Newlands Ground.
Let us check out the player ratings of the Indian side:
Top Order
Yashasvi Jaiswal (2.5/10): It will be completely understandable if Yashasvi Jaiswal is given an extended run in the Test team after his performances in West Indies, which included a 171-run knock, but he needs to do better than what he did in this series.
In four innings, the youngster scored just 50 runs, with his average barely being over 12. In Centurion, Jaiswal scored 17 runs in the first innings and 5 runs in the second attempt. Then in Cape Town, he was first dismissed for a duck but finally managed to show some promise in the second innings by scoring 28 runs.
Rohit Sharma (5/10): While Indian fans will be happy with Rohit Sharma’s captaincy because he became the first Indian captain to win a Test match in Cape Town, his batting was not up to the mark in this series.
In two matches, the Indian skipper scored 60 runs at an average of 20. He had a horrible time in Centurion, where he scored 5 runs in the first innings and got out on a duck in the second innings. But thankfully for his team, he delivered in Cape Town, getting scores of 39 and 16 not out in difficult conditions.
Shubman Gill (3/10): Shubman Gill might be considered among the best ODI cricketers of the current generation, but there are serious questions about his performance in Test cricket. He had a pretty lukewarm time in South Africa, where he scored 74 runs in two matches at an average of 18.50.
At the first Test in Centurion, he was dismissed for just 2 runs in the first innings. While he got off to a good start to a good start in the second innings, he could not capitalize on that and was dismissed on 26. His best knock came in the first innings of the Cape Town Test, where he scored 36 runs. But in the next innings, he could only contribute 10 runs.
Middle Order
Virat Kohli scored the most runs for India in this series
Virat Kohli (8/10): Virat Kohli turns out to be India’s savior with the bat almost every time they come to South Africa, and this particular series was no different. The former Indian skipper was the highest run-scorer for his team by a country mile, getting 172 runs at an average of 43.
Kohli scored 38 runs in the first innings of the Centurion Test, but in the second innings, he was the lone fighter for India by scoring 76 runs. When every batter struggled on the Cape Town track, he showed his class by scoring 46 runs in the first innings, although he could not score more than 12 runs in the second innings.
Shreyas Iyer (3/10): Shreyas Iyer’s case has similarities to that of Gill. While there can be no debate about his usefulness in limited-overs cricket, especially ODIs, Iyer wasn’t able to justify his place in the Indian Test team.
In this series, the middle-order batter scored just 41 runs at an average of 13.66 and was the lowest scorer among the specialist batters. The Mumbaikar scored 31 runs in the first innings of the first Test, but everything went downhill after that as he got only 10 runs in the remaining three innings.
KL Rahul (7/10): As was the case in the final of the 2023 ICC Men’s World Cup, KL Rahul proved why he is rightfully known as the crisis manager for India. On tracks which asked a lot of questions to the batters, Rahul’s technique and temperament helped him score 113 runs at an average of nearly 40.
He played a classic knock in the first innings of the Centurion Test by scoring 101 runs, which made him the lone centurion from the Indian team in this series. Though he scored only 12 runs over the next two innings, Rahul’s place in the team is now all but cemented.
All-rounders
Ravichandran Ashwin (3/10): It would be very harsh to give Ravichandran Ashwin a low score, simply because the conditions were not meant for him at all. Playing in only the Centurion Test like Thakur, he scored 8 runs in the first innings and got out for a golden duck in the second innings. With the ball, he got the wicket of Gerald Coetzee and conceded 41 runs in 19 overs, with his economy rate being just over 2.
Shardul Thakur (3/10): Given a chance in the Centurion Test, Shardul Thakur could not utilize the opportunity. Though he did score 26 runs with the bat, 24 of them coming in the first innings only, his bowling let India down big time. Bowling 19 overs, Thakur conceded 101 runs at an economy rate of over five runs per over. Though he got the important wicket of Dean Elgar, it did not make his numbers look much better.
Ravindra Jadeja (1/10): If Ashwin had a limited role to play in this series, Ravindra Jadeja had no role whatsoever. After missing the Centurion Test, he was picked for the Cape Town affair where he did not get a chance to bowl a single ball, as the pitch suited the pacers. In the only time he got a chance to bat, Jadeja got a two-ball duck.
Bowlers
Jasprit Bumrah got a six-wicket haul in the last innings of the last Test
Jasprit Bumrah (9/10): Come what may, Jasprit Bumrah remains a consistent performer for India across all formats, and he was once again seen in good rhythm here in South Africa. The pacer was India’s highest wicket-taker with 12 wickets at an average of just over 12.
In the first Test, he was India’s best bowler by picking up 4 wickets and conceding only 69 runs, where the opposition scored 408. In the second Test, he got 2 wickets for 25 runs in the first innings, before getting a six-wicket haul in the second innings.
Mohammed Siraj (8/10): Like Bumrah, his protégé Mohammed Siraj also had a good time with the ball, bamboozling batters with his seam movement. He picked up 9 wickets and had an average of slightly over 15.
Siraj did not have a great start as he could pick only two wickets by conceding 91 runs in the first Test, but the first day in Cape Town was when the world witnessed ‘Miyan Magic’ all over again. He picked up 6 wickets by conceding only 15 runs in that innings, before coming back to add another wicket to his name in the second innings.
Prasidh Krishna (2/10): While the Indian team management will be satisfied with most of their frontline pacers, they will be a bit concerned about how debutant Prasidh Krishna fared in this series. Despite the conditions suiting the tall pacers, Krishna could only pick up 2 wickets after conceding 160 runs, with a poor average of 65.
The Bangalore lad picked up just one wicket in the first Test after conceding 93 runs. In the second Test, he could not pick any wicket in the first innings and got the wicket of only tail-ender Kagiso Rabada in the second innings.
Mukesh Kumar (7/10): While Krishna did not impress anyone in his debut series, Mukesh Kumar keeps on proving why the selectors were right to make him a permanent member of the red-ball team.
Given a chance in the Cape Town Test, Mukesh picked up four wickets at an average of 14. In the first innings, he did not concede a single run and got the wickets of Radaba and Keshav Maharaj followed by important wickets of Elgar and Tony de Zorzi in the second innings.