Rocky On The Road For Kohli's India

Dileep Premachandran highlights the issues India need to address as they look to flourish in Tests away from home

For all the fighting talk about new frontiers and creating a legacy, Virat Kohli and Ravi Shastri –India’s captain and coach – knew what lay in wait in the southern cape.

Most tours of England and Australia, even in the grim years, have seen at least one epic Indian batting performance. A quarter of a century of Tests in South Africa has seen only struggle. Even if you look at the two Tests India have won on South African soil, they were set up by the pace bowlers, who usually enjoy the profile of Tour de France domestiques in comparison to the batting superstars.

At the Wanderers in 2006, where the now-exiled Sreesanth kept propelling the ball with the seam bolt upright and Zaheer Khan swung it this way and that, India made 249 and 236. The excellence of their bowlers ensured they won by 123 runs. Four years later, they won in Durban after making just 205 and 228, with Zaheer, Sreesanth and Harbhajan Singh to the fore in another memorable bowling outing.

In those years, India could call on a middle-order of Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar and VVS Laxman. The first two made mountains of runs in England, while Tendulkar and Laxman were similarly prolific in Australia. But in South Africa, on pitches that had Australian bounce and English lateral movement, even the giants struggled. In 35 innings going back to 1992, India have topped 400 just four times, twice in defeats.