India tour of South Africa 2017-18 News

The last time India played an ODI game at St. George's Park was in 2018, it was the fifth ODI of the six-match series and India were leading the series by a 3-1 margin coming into the 5th game.

One of the biggest problems of with Indian cricket community is its inability to distinguish between formats. This is most evident in how performances in Indian Premier League (IPL) are often considered sound basis to rate a player's abilities in the longer format. Also, not looking at different formats separately leads to incorrect assumptions about form. One player who is constantly described as playing for his career or under pressure to prove himself again is Ajinkya Rahane. Anyone who only looks at his Test performances would be stunned to see how unfairly he is tagged as 'out of form' even in the longest format of the game. So much has been said and written about the 'form' of Rahane coming into this series. That is the height of absurdity. If one looks at the performances of Rahane in Test cricket, he would know that the Mumbai batsman has been among the most consistent in the Indian team and is actually a cornerstone of the team's batting. But this is where the short-sightedness of Indian fans and critics comes into play. Just because he didn't have a good IPL, Rahane was dubbed as being 'out of form.' Now, what in the world does a T20 league have to do with Test cricket. If IPL performances be the parameter for judging a player's form in Tests, Indian should drop Pujara since he doesn't even get into an IPL XI. Now, let's look at Rahane's performances in the last few years. Yes, he didn't get runs in the two Tests against New Zealand, India's last Test series. But guess what, neither did Virat Kohli. In fact, in the four innings that India played in that series, the highest score by an Indian was 58 - by Mayank Agarwal in the second innings of the first Test. In the first innings of that match, Rahane was the top scorer for India with 46. Now let's keep going backwards. Before that series, India played Bangladesh at home in two Tests. India had just two innings to bat in the two matches. Rahane scored 86 and 51 in his two innings. Before that, India played South Africa in three Tests at home. Rahane scored 215 runs in that series with an average of over 72, including one century and one half-century. Before that, in West Indies, Rahane scored 271 runs at an average of 102 with one hundred and two fifties, in the two-match series. Now, even before the series in West Indies, Rahane was deemed to be 'under pressure.' Why was that? Let's look at his performances in Test matches before that tour. In India's famous series win in Australia, Rahane wasn't among the top scorers. Still, he scored half-centuries in the first two Tests - He didn't get runs in the remaining two matches, which included just three innings, but is that enough to question his place in the team. Prior to the tour of Australia, Rahane had scored 87 in the first innings of the only Test India won in England, forming a partnership with Virat Kohli that set up India's victory. Prior to that, in South Africa, Ravi Shastri and Virat Kohli chose Rohit Sharma ahead of Rahane for the first two Tests because Rohit has more 'intent' - the word that Shastri-Kohli duo are obsessed with. Rohit failed in both those matches and then, Rahane played in the third Test, played on a most dangerous seamer-friendly pitch. In India's vital second-innings, he top scored with 48, helping India gain a big win. A player with such a record ought to be backed even when he's had a lean series, rather than judged to be 'playing for his place.' More importantly, Rahane's form since India's tour of West Indies has been extremely good. Yet, because he didn't do well in a T20 league, he was judged to be 'under pressure.' Such nonsense must cease immediately.