2nd Test: India batsmen lost the game of patience

Bengaluru, January 17: This tour of South Africa was supposed to be the starting point of a defining period in Indian cricket. That's what we have been told. Repeatedly.

Since then Virat Kohli and his men have crashed to two heavy defeats. In Cape Town, they lost within three days - four if we count the washed out day - and 34 overs to spare. In Centurion, India went down by 135 runs with two sessions remaining on the final day.

The Centurion defeat will hurt India even more because it was the kind of pitch they were used to back home. Variable bounce was there on offer for the bowlers from day four but nothing to the extent of unplayable and only M Vijay got out to a ball that kept low.

Hardik Pandya, R Ashwin, Rohit Sharma, Parthiv Patel and KL Rahul were dismissed while playing loose shots - reaching out to balls well outside the off-stump or playing pulls/cuts that were not neatly executed.

There's not much need to think about Cheteswar Pujara's dismissals as he was run out in both innings of the second Test. Yes, there were sustained pressure from the South African pacers and that's what you expect from such top of the draw bowling units.

But more than being menacing, the South Africans gnawed at the patience of Indians with steady line and clever use of short balls. There were runs for the pragmatic kind - Virat and AB de Villiers showed it.

#CSAnews @NgidiLungi sweeps Indian resistance away with maiden sixfer #ProteaFire #SAvIND #SunfoilTest ... https://t.co/LH2vKlhVV7 pic.twitter.com/QP3n8veoLt

— Cricket South Africa (@OfficialCSA) January 17, 2018

There were few takers for that method particularly in the Indian line-up. Perhaps, the long stretch of dominance on home turfs has set in so deeply in their minds that the Indians forget that Test cricket at times can resemble a game of chess.

You need to respect the bowlers on top their game, grind it out and wait for your turn to surge ahead. There were pockets of fight, especially from bowlers during both the Tests. Even the largely underwhelming Mohammad Shami had his own moment on the fourth day of the Centurion Test.

But the batsmen offered only two significant passages - Kohli's hundred in Centurion and Pandya's counter attacking fifty in Cape Town. You can attribute that to lack of preparation proper prior to the series.

A BCCI mail had informed us in December last year without offering any reasons that a side game ahead of the first Test was cancelled. There were even reports that the Indian team declined BCCI's offer to send Test specialists early to South Africa.

Be that as it may, but it's true that the Indian batsmen walked into the Test series banking on a few net sessions, throw downs by the support staff and pile of runs made at home conditions.

It took only four innings to realise the folly behind such moves. Think of it, the previous generation of Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid and VVS Laxman prepared extensively ahead of foreign tours and it resulted in a period in which India enjoyed a good amount of success away from home.

The selection for the second Test too looked iffy as in a heavily criticised move India benched pacer Bhuvneshwar Kumar, the most successful Indian player in Cape Town.

However, the bowlers tried their best to keep India in the match only for the batsmen to shut every small creek they opened with brick and mortar.

India need a collective effort from batsmen and very soon too. Otherwise, the road will keep getting longer, darker and lonely for them.