India captain Suryakumar Yadav was warned of a major vulnerability on Monday after it became a “glaring” concern in the team’s humiliating 76-run loss to South Africa in their Super 8 clash in Ahmedabad. Former India cricketer Sanjay Manjrekar urged the side to remain “humble” and quickly address key flaws before their next Super 8 fixture against Zimbabwe in Chennai later this week.
Reflecting on the defeat in a video posted on Instagram, Manjrekar said the loss served as a reality check. He stressed that India must “respect the opposition” and view the setback as an opportunity to fix three clear areas of concern.
“A big defeat for India against South Africa. The first strong team India has played, and they haven’t really coped well. But the good news is that India is not out of the tournament,” he said.
“What South Africa have done — and we have to be humble and respect the opposition, and in a way thank them — is show us three areas of improvement that we can still work on to get into the final rounds and hopefully win the title.”
Manjrekar identified India’s struggle against spin as the most pressing issue throughout the tournament.
“The first area of concern is obvious: India are struggling against spin. So how do you solve that? Rearrange the batting order so that naturally good players of spin bat higher up. Someone like Tilak Varma, who is struggling a little, can move down the order,” he suggested.
He then pointed to another weakness that was exposed against South Africa — the batters’ difficulty against pace-off deliveries. Suryakumar, who scored 18 off 22 balls, came under particular scrutiny.
“The other glaring thing in this game was that when pace bowlers took the pace off, Indian batters struggled. The captain seemed to struggle the most when the pace was taken off,” Manjrekar observed.
Finally, he recommended strengthening the bowling attack by including Kuldeep Yadav as an additional wicket-taking option.
“When the batting isn’t firing, teams often look to add more batting depth. But another way to cover that weakness is by strengthening the bowling. So get Kuldeep Yadav in.”
“If changes are made quickly and effectively, India still have a great chance of reaching the final rounds,” he concluded.
