Shikhar Dhawan won the toss and elected to field. The series was widely perceived as a ‘second-string’ Indian team, resembling the composition of an Ind ‘A’ team, taking on a full-strength South African team. When Shreyas Iyer hit Marco Jansen for a six over long off to win the series 2-1, after Shubman Gill fell for a 57-ball 49, with seven wickets and 30.5 overs to spare, India’s ominous depth in resources came to the fore. If anything, the veteran Dhawan would have liked to get more runs than his scores of 4, 13 and 8 in the series. While this has been a graduation process for most players playing in the series, there are players who are fighting to reclaim their spots in India’s first choice XI. For Kuldeep Yadav, who was a first-choice spinner three years ago, every opportunity is like a shot at redemption. Injuries and indifferent form had pushed down to the reserve pool of players. On Tuesday, he continued his comeback trail by wiping out the lower half of the South African batting returning figures of 4/18 in 4.1 overs. His guile has always troubled South Africans. Tuesday was no different. If anything, he would have loved a bowl earlier than Shahbaz Ahmed to test himself against the top order.
