India vs South Africa: Kagiso Rabada is hopeful about turning the tables

The recent past has not been good for the South African team for the last couple of weeks. After losing the last test match at Johannesburg, they continued the same fate in the first two matches back to back. Especially the last ODI at Centurion has been a terrible blow – the South Africans not only showed a display of poor batting performance by getting all out within 118 runs, they lost the match by the 21st over of the Indian innings.

However, young pacer Kagiso Rabada thinks all is not yet lost – they still have hope to bounce back in the series.

What Rabada has to say…

Rabada is straight and forward in accepting that their team does have a few problematic areas that they need to work on, but he is not ready to accept that everything is as fallen apart as it seems. For him, it is more like success and failure being two sides of the coin.

“There are a few problems. I wouldn’t say there’s a lot. Sometimes when you do badly, all it seems like there’s a lot more going wrong than what really is happening. So failure is going to happen and it’s going to happen again,” Rabada said. “It is very important we keep speaking the right language. Anything can happen in sport. We need to get as much momentum as we can. We are definitely not out of it. Definitely not!” he added.

Clearly, the right-arm fast bowler is quite positive about turning the tables in this six match ODI series. Although India is leading it 2-0 for now, things can definitely change anytime in a game of cricket.

Where does the problem lie?

Rabada also blames the various changes that the team is going through and talks about not finding their ground since the Champions Trophy last summer. “It doesn’t help that we have been going through a few changes and not been in the best form since the Champions Trophy in one-day cricket. We are still trying to catch up at the moment. Hopefully, it comes pretty soon,” he says.

Injuries and replacements

What does not help even more is that three of the key players of the team have now been ruled out of the series because of injuries – AB de Villiers, Quinton de Kock and the captain Faf du Plessis after hurting his finger in the first ODI.

Aiden Markram, who stood in as the skipper in the second ODI would lead the team for the rest of the matches. The SA selectors have said they would not bring in a replacement for de Kock in the series, so it might be the break for uncapped keeper Heinrich Klaasen who is in the squad.

Maybe Rabada is right to think that this might in the hindsight help strengthen the youth of the team for the 2019 World Cup.

What is the game plan?

The South African team has already tried five wrist spinners in their Tuesday net to deal with the blistering spells that Yuzvendra Chahal and Kuldeep Yadav have unleashed in the last two matches. When asked about what else they could be doing, Kagiso Rabada replied, “In an ideal world, close to the perfect game, if a lot of people score runs and lot of people take wickets. Or you need individual brilliance. We’ll take either.”

He says the team is concentrating more on doing the job on the field than worrying about the losses. “It’s not generally that we something we talk about. We are experienced enough to know that cricket is a game of ups and downs. We just need to go back, see where we’re going wrong, calm down and do our business on the field looking to turn the momentum over.”

The 3rd ODI will take place at Cape Town on Wednesday.

For more cricketing news, do follow www.crictracker.com