India still a formidable opponent at home.

South Africa won the T20 and One day International Series and India are about to clinch the Test series. It has been a mixed bag of luck for both the teams.

When everyone thought that India would put up a strong performance against the South Africans in the shorter formats of the game, the opposite happened, the talent of some of the big hitters of the South Africa team, took the games away from the hosts. 

And when everyone expected a humdinger of a Test series, the visitors were found lacking and went down for some record low scores like 79 all out on typical sub-continental pitches.

I recollect Shaun Pollock mentioning during the course of the match in the ongoing series that South Africans need to play out of their skins now, but the visitors just ran out of strategy.

Through out the series Indian spinners in Ravi Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja and Amit Mishra have probed the South African batsmen to the hilt and it proved that home team exploited the conditions very well. Imran Tahir did had good stints too.

Ajinkya Rahane was the standout batsmen in the final Test of the match, at a position when India were 200 plus runs for 7 wickets he kept the wicket at the other end and built good partnerships to steer the hosts out of trouble in the first innings that gave Team India a huge leverage against the visitors.

Though this South Africa line up looks bleak without the likes of Graeme Smith, Jacques Kallis both retiring from the game and Dale Steyn and Vernon Philander out due to injury, the new comers have plenty to take home from the Sub Continental tour. Rabada, Harmer, Pleidt have good memories of the series for sure.

On the final day of this memorable tour the visitors would be looking to draw, but it will be a very difficult proposition considering the final day Kotla pitch to achieve that target.

No matter what the result is, India showed that it still remains the formidable opponent at home and Skipper Virat Kohli has one more feather in his cap with this series win.

It will be a series worth remembering for the captains of both the teams who have something to take home for the new year.

Valleyz.Blog