Former Pakistan Cricketer, Danish Kaneria made a big statement on his YouTube channel as he said that the Indian Dressing Room was divided into two groups in the first ODI against South Africa at Paarl. He stated that the stand-in Captain and Virat Kohli were sitting apart from the team.
“We saw during the game that the Indian dressing room was divided into two groups. KL Rahul and Virat Kohli were sitting apart.”
Also, Kohli wasn’t in the same mood as he used to be when he was the captain. But he’s a team man and will come back stronger,” said Danish Kaneria
Lack of intensity from the Indian team helped the South Africa side to put the target of 297 runs
He also feels that KL Rahul, who is the stand-in Captain in place of Rohit Sharma, has not shown the spark yet and the lack of intensity from the Indian team in the field had helped the South Africa side to put the total of 296 runs.
At one stage South Africa was 68-3 but after that, they recovered as captain Temba Bavuma (110) and an unbeaten 129 from Rassie van der Dussen helped the hosts to post a match-winning score of 296/4 from their 50 overs.
“After losing the Test series, India would be eager to redeem themselves and clinch the ODI rubber. But Rahul hasn’t shown that spark until now. He had led in the Test series but wasn’t able to lift the team to break the South African partnership. At one stage, it didn’t look like the Proteas would put up 296 on the scoreboard. Lack of intensity from the Indian team helped the opposition in scoring such a total. There were also fielding lapses from the visitors,” he further said.
He also added that KL Rahul needs to lift his batting, Captaincy, and the team
“Rahul needs to lift up captaincy and batting as well. He needs to lift the team. Also, Bhuvneshwar Kumar gave away many runs against South Africa and the Ashwin-Chahal pair didn’t look effective like the Kuldeep-Chahal duo. India didn’t use Venkatesh Iyer’s bowling services too. The next ODI will be played at the same venue and India needs to learn from its mistakes. Their intensity was poor in the series opener,” Kaneria further said.
