India's tour to South Africa finally started. Due to a lot of off-field drama, there were dark clouds over the entire tour. Board-level politics at at both ends almost cancelled the tour but finally resulted in a delayed and shortened tour. That's okay, as long as the cricket lovers in both countries can witness some high level cricket. Well...that is/was the expectation.

The first one-day ended few hours back. Due to the time difference between South Africa and Malaysia, it was difficult to watch the entire match....especially with the current workload in office. Though l decided to take some much needed rest, the match was pretty much on the mind. l woke up at 4 am to check the score/result. l wish I had not!!

What a disastrous start of the tour. India lost by 141 runs!! That is a massive defeat. More than the margin of defeat, what is disappointing is the performance of our bowlers. So much was expected of our pacers but apart from Shami Ahmed, the others were pretty disappointing. There are so much expectations from Bhuvaneswar Kumar. l did not watch the match but analysts indicate that he bowled in wrong areas. I hope the pacers get used to pace and bounce in South Africa quickly. In any case, there are other seam bowling options available though one of them is Ishant Sharma.

Two other disappointing factors are (a) the ineffectiveness of spinners. Aswin and Jadeja did not get much purchase from the track and (b) performance of Yuvraj Singh.

Yuvraj Singh is a champion cricketer but is clearly struggling. It is okay if the team persists with him but that would be unfair to some other players who are waiting for a chance. 

India is going to miss a fast (or medium pace) bowling all-rounder. Irfan Pathan is injured (he always is) and there are not many options. Jadeja is useful but is he going to be as useful in these conditions? That is a question that needs to be answered. He is not a great batsman at the spot he bats on. He comes there as he is a better batsman (arguably) than Aswin. Indian selectors could have tried someone else for this tour. There are not many options available but someone like Abhishek Nayar (though I hate it for 'do not why') could have been tested. Nayar has been having a good time with the bat and ball. In one of the practice matches against West Indies, he took more wickets than the front line bowlers, which included Zaheer Khan. Then there is Rajat Bhatia, who is more of a military medium but is an intelligent bowler. And his batting is not worse that Jadeja. 

The team has to work with the available options and I hope they come up with better shows in next matches. One-dayers do not matter that much, I am excited about the test matches :)