Team India's overseas bane started due to the overconfidence of Skipper Virat and Team Management. SA whitewash on the cards.

Skipper Virat Kohli and Team India went to South Africa as Numero-uno test team in the world. There were lots of expectations with this team. None of the Asian teams ever won a series in South Africa till now and it was saying that, Team India will do that this time, Team India has the best fast bowling line up this time etc numerous verbose. But this was before the starting of the Test series. And when Test series started, first test in Cape town, Virat Kohli understood that his honeymoon is over now. South Africa planned brilliantly against India but they did it silently. They kept Indians in puzzle that Dale Steyn might not playing the first test. But fully fit Dale Steyn played the first test and banged India's 1st innings with 2 wickets. Yes, then he ruled out for rest of the series for an another injury on toe. But Vernon Philander ran through the Indian batting in the second innings of the first Test, claiming a career-best six-wicket haul at Cape Town.India lost the match by 72 runs. Indian bowlers may have taken 20 wickets but the batsmen failed to mark anything on the ground. They could not chase down the target of only 208 runs in the last innings and bundled out for only 135 runs in Cape Town. Second test started in Centurion and same story is repeated here again. Bowlers did their job but batsmen failed, didn't chase down 287 run-target and bundled out for only 151 in the last innings. This time debutant speedster Lungi Ngidi took six-wicket haul. Now India already slump to series loss. And I won't wonder if South Africa wouldn't whitewash India in this Freedom series.

• Where India went wrong?

Overconfidence. Over-aggression. This two words define Team-India's current situation. I'm explaining you why I'm telling this.

After playing with the Test minnows like Sri Lanka, West Indies, Bangladesh, Kohli thought that his team is unbeatable. Wow man! After playing almost one and a half years in Home condition, you are going to play with the second best Test team in their own soil and what did yo do? At first you cancelled the practice matches and then you went there only 5-6 days before the actual test schedule!! Sunil Gavaskar to Sourav Ganguly, they all had given importance to the preparation time for the away tours. They preferred to go minimum before 20 days in the away tours. Diana Edulji - member of COA, BCCI & former India Women's team captain asked Indian team management if any cricketer wants to go early in South Africa then BCCI will arrange that. But team management didn't respond on that. I guess all Indian players were waiting for their skipper's wedding reception, they didn't want to miss that ! 

The second faux-pas is Team selection. 

Ajinkya Rahane is the vice captain of the team and he is the best overseas batsman of this team. And he is benched in first two test. And who replaced him? Rohit Sharma,who hardly made it count in challenging conditions. 

Hardik Pandya, another folly of team India. Virat Kohli said so many times that bowlers have to take 20 wickets to win a Test match and that's why he like to play with five bowlers. This is over-aggressiveness. The fact is you can take 20 wickets with four genuine good bowlers but you need an extra batsman for back up situation in overseas tours. In these two tests bowlers took 20 wickets -  that's fine, but did you able to win the matches? And I don't think bowler Hardik Pandya is creating much difference! In the second test he failed to take any wicket! And in the first innings of the first test Hardik's 93 was just a lucky break, nothing more than that.

Virat's next blunder is dropping Bhuvaneswar Kumar in the second test. He is one of the silent members of the team like Rahane. He bowled superbly in the first test. For his heroic bowling India could come back in that match, slams total six wickets in the match, made a great partnership in both innings of the match with Hardik and Ashwin respectively, faced most number of balls in that Test match and remained not out in the second innings at Captown, and then guess what? Got axed in the second test. Why? Because the pitch was flat, there would not be any lateral movement or swing, so Bhuvi is not a good choice for this condition according to Virat Kohli! Just a "wow" to this illogical decision! 

Next issue is Parthiv Patel. Yes, Parthiv Patel is again played for India in overseas after 14 years. Is Indian team management in a mood to kidding with us? What can he do? Neither keeping nor batting! Result? FOUR catches dropped in the second innings of the second match. I guess Ravi Shastri forgot the maxim, which states, "take Catches win Matches!" Is there any wicketkeeper- batsman in India after MS Dhoni? (FWI, Wriddhiman is suffering with a hamstring niggle.)

Another one is the Opening position debate. Murali Vijay is one opener for India, that's fixed. Maybe he is not in a great touch, but at least we can trust him. But who would be his partner? In the first test India went with Shikhar Dhawan. He failed to prove himself. Virat immediately dropped him and went with KL Rahul in the second test. Rahul did suicides in both innings in the same fashion like Dhawan. Now what will Virat do? And on the other hand, team management is overlooking Gautam Gambhir (who is among the runs in the Ranji trophy as well) as Virat has a problem with him!

Umpteen loopholes came out in just 10-15 days! And all the blames are against Virat Kohli. Suddenly he became antagonist of Indian Cricket. Now everyone is saying that, Virat Kohli wears the mask of bravado and actually his team has not the right potential to show the real bravery! Yes, he may be one of the best batsmen in the world, he proved it with the innings of 153 runs in the first innings of second test in Centurion. He is the batting leader of this team, there is no doubt, but is he really a good captain overall? I don't think the answer is Yes! He can't even manage his team. In every test match, he is shuffling players in the team and for this shuffling and juggling the confidence level and morale of the team is going down, players don't know if they will get chance for the next game or not. Champion team won't do that. Champion team like to play with fixed eleven players. When Sourav Ganguly became captain, he tried to make a fixed eleven  players who are the best. Dhoni has his fixed players. I don't think Virat Kohli is doing right things at this moment. Moreover has Kohli any Plan B in Test matches on the field? Did he do proper home-works against South Africa? India's fielding in these two tests are just massacre. Team India couldn't able to show the character, lost the momentum every time! We are disappointed very much. 

Virat Kohli, we are crazy passionate cricket fans. We don't have any personal issue with you. But now a days when you guys are earning in Crores just for us, then we have some expectations. When you do good, fans will treat you like God, but when you are doing mistakes, fans will delve you in mud of criticism. This is Indian Cricket. Hope Virat will learn leaps and bounds and India will play better.

Bidding adieu for today. Thanks for reading my blog. Comment here if you have any argument. Will come back soon with new stories. :)