South Africa vs India 2018: 5 reasons why India lost the Test series

#2 No solid partnerships

Lack of partnerships proved costly for India

Partnerships are the key to winning matches. The Indians were undone in the first Test by the partnership of AB de Villers and Faf du Plessis. The pair took the game away from India after a brilliant start by Bhuvneshwar Kumar.

On the other hand, India's highest partnership of the Test series was between their no.7 and no.8 (Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Hardik Pandya). They made 99 runs in the first innings of the first test at Cape Town. Apart from that, India made only three 50+ partnerships in the first two Tests and most of them involved their lower order batsmen.

Lack of partnerships was one of the key factors in India's poor performance. Kohli & Co. never had momentum and South Africa was in control of the series most of the time.