South Africa vs India 2018: 3 changes India must make to win at the Wanderers

After a tremendous winning streak at home, India faced an uphill battle in challenging South African conditions.

Although the bowling department has performed superbly, batting has been an awful mess. Poor team selection, poor captaincy and sloppy fielding are the main causes for their shocking series loss in South Africa.

The Proteas gained an unassailable lead of 2-0 in the three match Test series with one to play at the Wanderers Stadium in Johannesburg. If India can change their mindset and play an aggressive brand of cricket, they can beat the mighty South Africans in their home conditions at least to avoid a whitewash.

Here are some changes that India must do in the third Test starting from Wednesday to restore some pride.

# 1. Bring back Ajinkya Rahane-

The team management's decision to drop Ajinkya Rahane from the starting XI has backfired in the last two Tests in South Africa.

Rohit Sharma, who was chosen ahead of Ajinkya Rahane, has failed to deliver the goods for the team at crucial stages of both the matches.

Rahane's form in the recent Test series was poor, but he had scored lots of runs in the overseas conditions when India toured the world in the 2014-15 season. Six of his 9 Test centuries are in away conditions and he has the right technique to gain success in these conditions.

Kohli must bring back this superb batsman in the starting XI for the last game of the series.

#2. Show more intent while batting

Virat Kohli& co. must play an aggressive brand of cricket to push the South Africans back

Apart from Virat Kohli and Hardik Pandya, no one showed much intent to score runs and take game away from the opposition in both the matches.

Virat Kohli's brilliant 153 in Centurion and Hardik Pandya's 93 in Cape Town are the only standout performances so far from Indians in the series.

Cheteshwar Pujara has struggled against this impressive South African bowling line up and Murali Vijay's impatience at the crease has let the team down massively. Shikhar Dhawan should have been given the license to attack in the first 10-15 overs to put some pressure on the South African bowling attack. India scored just 209, 135, 307 and 151 in the four consecutive innings and that is not good enough to beat a team like South Africa.

Indian batsmen have to show some intent to score gritty runs in the crunch moments of the match.

#3. Improve fielding

Indians must hold on to their catches if they want to win the match

It has to be said that sloppy fielding has let the Indians down in this Test series. They have dropped far too many catches in slips whereas South Africans have been dominant in this department.

South Africa have taken some brilliant catches in the last Test in Centurion whereas in Cape Town, Shikhar Dhawan dropped Keshav Maharaj when he was on nought and he went on to score 35 crucial runs in the first innings.

Indian wicket-keeper Parthiv Patel also dropped Hashim Amla on 25 in the first innings in Centurion. As a result Amla went on to score 83 runs in that innings and set the game up for the hosts. In these low scoring games, ground fielding and slip catching are very important aspects but India definitely lacks skills in those departments. If they can compete well in the last match of the series in Johannesburg, they will surely be proud of themselves.