Everyone take a Chill Pill... We performed decently well.

[bowl_out]

Decent performance, but the reason people are blowing their heads off is that, it could have led to a victory if we had avoided some rookie mistakes:

 

- Play technically and temperamentally correct players for the format (Rahul, Rahane instead of Dhawan, Rohit)

- Don't drop catches. 

- Lose your wicket only to balls that deserve a wicket.. Top 3 in the first innings were horrendous shots.

If we lose despite doing all this right, I wouldn't mind.

In the case of the first Test, these three could well be the 72 run defeat margin

[Forever Indian]

If we improve from here, then that would be great. But sustaining of performance throughout series has been our main issue.

 

That's what happened in most of our overseas tours before. 1st test in last SA tour we were brilliant with both bat and ball and set SA 400 + to chase and could not skittle them out. Similarly Lords victory set us up 1-0 and then we went on to lose 1-3. NZ we took a big lead, dropped McCullum's catch and then lost the whole initiative and lost 1-0.

 

So all these moral victories and good starts have already happened a lot, nothing new. What will be new is if we go on to improve further and win a series. That is all that matters.

Edited January 8, 2018 by Forever Indian

[Detonator]

13 minutes ago, CG said:

14 minutes ago, Detonator said:

This pitch has no demons as well. 

Did u watch the match Philander was Bowers leg spinners at 125ks

it's a typical SA pitch, tough but not unplayable.  Vern is hitting the seam every ball accurate as hell, but I dont think he got too much out of the pitch

Edited January 8, 2018 by Detonator

[CG]

it's a typical SA pitch, tough but not unplayable. 

Compared to last time this was.

[kruiser]

18 minutes ago, bowl_out said:

Decent performance, but the reason people are blowing their heads off is that, it could have led to a victory if we had avoided some rookie mistakes:

 

- Play technically and temperamentally correct players for the format (Rahul, Rahane instead of Dhawan, Rohit)

- Don't drop catches. 

- Lose your wicket only to balls that deserve a wicket.. Top 3 in the first innings were horrendous shots.

If we lose despite doing all this right, I wouldn't mind.

In the case of the first Test, these three could well be the 72 run defeat margin

well put! 

[rkt.india]

Was a great chance to win a test.

[Forever Indian]

3 minutes ago, rkt.india said:

Was a great chance to win a test.

Like it was in 1st test of last SA series, NZ series. We always have good patches of performance but in tests sustained performance mostly wins.

[sarcastic]

52 minutes ago, bowl_out said:

Decent performance, but the reason people are blowing their heads off is that, it could have led to a victory if we had avoided some rookie mistakes:

 

- Play technically and temperamentally correct players for the format (Rahul, Rahane instead of Dhawan, Rohit)

- Don't drop catches. 

- Lose your wicket only to balls that deserve a wicket.. Top 3 in the first innings were horrendous shots.

If we lose despite doing all this right, I wouldn't mind.

In the case of the first Test, these three could well be the 72 run defeat margin

Spot on with those two points!!! Catches win matches as they say :-)

 

[Deleted_User_1]

Aare bhai, we had 230 to score and we got bundled out in a few hrs. I thought Pujara said we could chase 350!!

[fineleg]

5 minutes ago, dandaroy said:

Aare bhai, we had 230 to score and we got bundled out in a few hrs. I thought Pujara said we could chase 350!!

Cant even chase 150 - spineless top order , total spineless pathetic performance.

ICF-ers day dreaming. Will wake up (?) once 0-3 is pasted.

[veer]

I wanted to believe that we played good... However there are few pointers:

 

1. Day 1 pitch favored us.. and we got them down cheaply

2. Day 2 Pandya got couple of lives and played too many risky shots.. it is not going to work every time

3. Day 4 pitch again favored us and we again got them out cheaply

4. They played with 3 bowlers.. Dale Steyn could/would have damaged us much worse..

 

[Deleted_User_1]

8 minutes ago, veer said:

I wanted to believe that we played good... However there are few pointers:

 

1. Day 1 pitch favored us.. and we got them down cheaply

2. Day 2 Pandya got couple of lives and played too many risky shots.. it is not going to work every time

3. Day 4 pitch again favored us and we again got them out cheaply

4. They played with 3 bowlers.. Dale Steyn could/would have damaged us much worse..

 

Pandya's performance actually skewed the scenario how bad we were. If he had failed in the first innings, our margin of defeat would have been several hundred runs. No one except him had any impact on the batting. 

[adi B]

Yes there was no practice match arranged by bcci (big mistake) and the players were casual in their approach but still being the world #1 and losing by 72 runs (a big margin in a low scoring game) is nothing to be happy about or gloating it as a good performance!! If that's the case then our standards our pretty low.

The whole batting unit failed ,not once but twice,none of the top 5 batsmen scored above 30 ,thats unheard of in test cricket,very alarming !!

[adi B]

1 hour ago, maniac said:

Not really...fk these moral victories and well fought attitude....problem with Indian culture....winning is not important participation is..blah blah blah.....no champion ever came out of this mindset.

 

When we bundled South Africa allout for 130...the sharks should have smelled blood and should have thrown everything at it to win the game....totally gutted and so should the team for messing up a golden opportunity...hope they have the mental strength to bounce back from

it and from what I have seen that is one positive aspect of this team.

 

 

Spot on 

[kira]

1 hour ago, Shunya said:

Sorry, this is not called performing well. But yes, nothing outrageous has happened, these are tough series for everyone and will really test our abilities. 

 

Lets fight back in the next one. Its not all over yet.

We performed well, we took 20 saffer wickets, south africa didn't dominate us, it was a pretty decent effort, in fact I think this saffer team isn't strong at all, we were able to push them after landing barely a week ago in sa and without any practice. Saffers should be very afriad as Indian bowlers have tasted blood

[adi B]

Make no mistake ,this was a chaseable target ,there were no demons in the pitch but in the minds of the Indian batsmen 

[Shunya]

6 minutes ago, kira said:

We performed well, we took 20 saffer wickets, south africa didn't dominate us, it was a pretty decent effort, in fact I think this saffer team isn't strong at all, we were able to push them after landing barely a week ago in sa and without any practice. Saffers should be very afriad as Indian bwlers have tasted blood

Cmon. That is just excuses for mediocrity. This is the weakest SA batting line up. We have one of the best bowling attacks ever. Our batsman are no pushovers even with their records skewed due to home games. They were short one player due to injury for more than half the game. Rain was in our favour, first day pitch was in our favour. With so many things working for us, this is just mediocre performance.

Its just hard to believe we ended up 92/7 and 82/7. Cannot be called good performance by any means. Positives out of the match will always be there no matter how badly you lose. That cannot be justified as performed well.

Sort out selection issues and catching, that will be the first step before the next match. Then we can hope for good performance to bounce back in the series. We have a chance in series with good bowlers and weak SA team.

[Mosher]

The bowlers did a great job but the spineless batsmen crapped all over it.

[express bowling]

Our bowlers performed well the whole of the 2nd innings and the first half of the 1st innings.

 

Our batsmen failed ..... apart from Pandya and to some extent Ashwin and Bhuvi. 

Edited January 8, 2018 by express bowling

[Turning_track]

3 minutes ago, Mosher said:

The bowlers did a great job but the spineless batsmen crapped all over it.

In overseas tests, it has almost become a norm that when a competitive target is set our batsmen shoot themselves in the foot everytime. 

It is truly shambolic. If Ash & Bhuvi can take the scorecard from 82 to 131 it means the track was not unplayable. Needed little partnerships with one stable partner at the other end carrying through.  Very disappointed with our batting.