India's tour of South Africa 2018: Analysing India's batting riches

Cheteshwar Pujara

On his third tour to South Africa, Pujara was the highest scorer in late 2013 with a superb 153 at Johannesburg. 4 years hence, with banks of runs and experience, Pujara is at the stage of his batting career where he knows his own game and plays to his potential for optimum results.

A sturdy No.3 blunts the opponents no end and more so with his tight defensive technique, monumental patience till the cows come back home after grazing and a ceaseless penchant to gnaw away like a hardworking ant. The only downside is that he may possess low hands with a quirky bottom-handed grip.

In bouncy conditions, he may be slow on the hook shot which he otherwise gets away with on slow, low pitches of Asia. To his credit, it must be said, he runs his own race and does not tinker too much with the software. And that to me, is his greatest trait, and going by the stats, can anyone blame him!

Virat Kohli

Among the batsmen set to tour South Africa, it is Virat Kohli who boasts of an enviable tour in 2013, as he nearly compiled successive tons at Johannesburg in a lost cause.

His insatiable hunger for runs has been Bradmanesque lately, and with the self-imposed rest, he is bound to be fresh and eager to lead the batsmen with good totals to help his battery of fast bowlers put pressure on the Protean batsmen.

Winning at cricket and scoring runs at batting is about skill with control. Angry young players without focus can lose the plot and it is to Virat 's exemplary credit that he has fought fire with fire, unafraid to give a bit of lip to the bowlers!

Anxious fans and discerning watchers of Virat reckoned that his inflammable anger may well consume him when handed the baton of Test captaincy. But, by his superb showing since assuming greater responsibility and with his enhanced laser-like focus, he has taught his own self about himself, by digging deep and being the side's inspiring torchbearer.

Virat 's greatest strength lately after the tour of Australia in 2014-15, is that he has skilfully combined Zen-like caution and patience with his innate aggression at the crease. Not easy to achieve, after a grueling summer in the Old Blighty in 2014, when he plumbed to an abysmal nadir failure as a batsman affects both the self and lets down the team too as the burden as a captain becomes heavy to bear. It is in this tough context that batsmen captain cut their teeth and achieve greatness when they succeed.

Even a player like Virat, like Sachin Tendulkar at No.4 before him, would dearly love and seek the support of the top order batsmen, to mitigate his concerns. They would help him to be at relatively greater ease, in these seaming and darting tracks of abroad, cut and dried for cunning pacemen.

Virat must find inspiration in this dual responsibility, which he has so dexterously displayed in the Windies and in Sri Lanka after, handing the mantle of captaincy. The stage is set for him to showcase similar inspirational deeds in the Southern hemisphere and at the Mother of all helpful bowling conditions, UK, as a skipper of well-oiled Indian liner!