South Africa bundled India by 49 runs at Indore in the dead rubber match of the T20 series. The hosts won the series by 2 – 1. Rilee Roussow was declared Player of the match for his maiden T20 ton of 100(49).

Truly, an amateurish show by the Indian team in all departments.Once again a below par performance by our bowling unit and it remains to be the biggest concern for the T20 World Cup in Australia.

Earlier, having rested senior players Rohit won the toss and elected to bowl on a stadium with shorter boundaries. And the visitors exploited the conditions well after a sluggish start with the failure of their skipper. The proteas skipper once again proved to be the “joker in the pack “. Unlike the last match at Guwahati Quinton De kock was on song from ball one. He thumped all bowlers round the arena with a whirlwind 68(43). After back to back failures, Rilee Roussow scored a swashbuckling unbeaten 100(48) studded with 8 maximums. South Africa amassed a mammoth 227(3) in it’s alloted quota of 20 overs. All Indian bowlers were taken to the cleaners by the visitors.

India started poorly and lost two wickets in the first two overs including the prized wicket of Rohit Sharma. Makeshift opener Rishabh Pant and the finisher Dinesh Kartik took over with their pyrotechnics.That show didn’t last long after them having thrown their wickets after a promising start. Man of the series Surya Kumar Yadav also fell cheaply. Wickets fell at regular intervals and some useful contributions from Deepak Chahar narrowed the margin of defeat at the fag end.

Ready for the WC?

Despite two series victories against the two top teams, our biggest disappointment is that our team was exposed over shortcomings. The team management have no more opportunities to address these handicaps before they board the flight to Australia.
Both series exposed our vulnerability to defend even 200+ scores against big teams.

Indian team will fly for the T20 world cup on October 6th. We’ll have practice sessions in Perth & Brisbane. And we will play 2 warm up matches in between, before the huge match against arch rivals Pakistan on 23rd October.

It is ridiculous to mention that we have had a year of preparation and it has come down to the eleventh hour to get everything sorted for the crucial World Cup.

Will these practice matches do any good for our preparation for the World cup?

Are these matches in Indian waist high bouncy pitches the exact ones for practice before the chin music challenges down under?

My Million dollar question is….

Are we going to play the T20 World Cup down under with the most unsettled bowling line up ever?

PS: Bumrah played only in 5 matches out of 34 matches since last World Cup. Also India won 90% matches during this period.