Sanjay Manjrekar questions Indian batters’ preparation after series loss against South Africa

Former Indian batter Sanjay Manjrekar has questioned Indian batters’ preparation after they suffered a 0-2 series loss against South Africa. The performance of India’s batting unit has come under scrutiny after they managed to cross the 200-run mark on only one occasion in four innings.

India returned with scores of 189, 93, 201, and 140 in the four innings of the Test series against the Proteas. Manjrekar highlighted that an Indian batter, who is picked after scoring heavily in the domestic circuit, doesn’t play in Indian conditions after getting the call-up.

The cricketer-turned-commentator noted that the likes of Shubman Gill, Rishabh Pant, Ravindra Jadeja and Yashasvi Jaiswal play more red-ball cricket in foreign conditions and thus when they bat at home, they are found wanting on spinning tracks.

Only Ravindra Jadeja and Washington Sundar could breach the 100-run mark in the two-match Test series against South Africa.

Sanjay Manjrekar said in a video on Instagram, “There are two reasons India went down 0-3 to New Zealand and 0-2 to South Africa at home. And both teams beat India not by pace, swing or bounce but by spin. One is when an Indian batter scores heavily in domestic cricket and gets selected for India, he becomes like an NRI. In the sense that he hardly plays at home. It’s more overseas cricket for Indian batters.”

“Looking at numbers, people like Yashasvi Jaiswal, KL Rahul, Shubman Gill and Rishabh Pant play anything between nine to 12 Test matches away from home the last two years and in India not as many. And when they play Tests at home, there are hardly any first-class matches that they’ve played. So they come very poorly trained or any recent experience on those kinds of pitches.”

Manjrekar observed that visiting teams frequently inviting India to tour them for the revenue, is also leading to India’s batters’ downfall.

“They are all class players with good records behind them but as I said like NRIs so slightly strangers at home when they come on those pitches. That’s one problem. The reason for that is obviously all these countries like England and Australia are very desperate to have India come over and play in their country because of the revenue they generate from the Indian team,” he said.

“So the Indian batters, once you start playing for India, you play away from home more and then you’re not as well trained to play in home conditions as you were before actually playing for India,” added Manjrekar.

India will next take on South Africa in a three-match ODI series.