South Africa never found a way past Kuldeep and Chahal : Graeme Smith

Former South African captain Graeme Smith has criticised the way the home side went about tackling the Indian wrist spinners in the recently concluded ODI series. They were hammered by India in their own den in the six-match series by 5-1 and all the wins of the visitors were absolutely comprehensive. Moreover, it was the skipper Virat Kohli who led from the front for them while South Africa had a struggling and rookie captain in Aiden Markram. However, Smith has questioned the strategy of the team as they never found a way past the spinners.

Yuzvendra Chahal and Kuldeep Yadav scalped 33 wickets together in the series which is a record. While South African batsmen played them well as the series progressed but the damage had been done in the first three matches itself. They got bogged down in the middle overs and failed to rotate the strike against them. The middle order looked absolutely clueless about their variations as well.

There was no real plan

Graeme Smith believed that South Africa had no backup plan to counter the Indian spinners and were caught completely off guard. “You got to wonder what the chat was about in the changeroom and how they go about it. South Africa really had no thought, no plan B or C. It was really just dot ball, dot ball, ‘okay let’s have a swing.’ There was no real plan, let’s try to build a partnership, it was almost like as the partnership builds it gets slightly easier and South Africa never found a way to do that,” he was quoted as saying by ESPN Cricinfo.

He also praised the young Indian cricketers who performed exceptionally well on their first trip to the country and was delighted that the wrist spinners were back into the action in the limited overs format. “Obviously two world-class spinners, Chahal and Kuldeep, excellent finds for India. It’s just great to see some spin come back into the game. The mystery spinners had left the game for a period of time – the Ajmals, Warnes, Muralitharans, there’s been a little bit of a gap. So, it’s great to see two guys like that come into the game, it makes the game really interesting to watch,” Smith concluded.

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