{"id":3975,"date":"2018-01-04T17:51:27","date_gmt":"2018-01-04T12:21:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sports.smartworld.asia\/?p=3975"},"modified":"2018-01-04T17:51:43","modified_gmt":"2018-01-04T12:21:43","slug":"new-year-challenges-virat-kohlis-india-south-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/smartzworld.com\/sports\/new-year-challenges-virat-kohlis-india-south-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"New year, same challenges for Virat Kohli’s India in South Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"

Virat Kohli’s team will back itself to become the first from India to win a Test series on South African soil, coming as it does off a superb last two years and with players in form and high on confidence, but history tells us that the challenge is mighty.<\/h2>\n

\"virat<\/p>\n

India are ranked No 1 in the ICC Test Championship after a heavy home season, and the tour of Sri Lanka this year, but have never won a series in South Africa. From the one tour they managed to draw a series, only Ishant Sharma remains (and he is India’s most capped player of this squad, too).<\/p>\n

Kohli, in two Tests in South Africa, has 272 runs with scores of 119 and 96 in one drawn Test. Rahane averages 69.66 in as many games, with two fifties and a 47. Pujara averages 44.42 in four, with top scores of 153 and 70. Vijay’s average is 29.33 from three Tests, with one fifty. Both he and Rahane came to within a shot of scoring centuries during the last tour, out for 97 and 96 respectively. Dhawan averages 19 in two Tests, with a best of 29; 11.25 in two, with a best of 25.<\/p>\n

As TOI highlighted this week, the success of past Indian pace attacks in South Africa has, collectively, not been flattering bar a couple of stand-out exploits, which literally have resulted in the two wins in South Africa in 2006-07 and 2010-11. In front of the South African pace attack’s collective figures, India’s pales.<\/p>\n

Kohli’s record in Tests against South Africa is a bit middling, compared to those against Sri Lanka, New Zealand and Australia, and considering the incredibly high standards he sets.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Virat Kohli’s team will back itself to become the first from India to win a Test series on South African soil, coming as it does off a superb last two years and with players in form and high on confidence, but history tells us that the challenge is mighty. India are ranked No 1 in …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3978,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"two_page_speed":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[1338],"tags":[1620,1403],"class_list":["post-3975","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-cricket-news","tag-south-africa","tag-virat-kohli"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/smartzworld.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3975","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/smartzworld.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/smartzworld.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smartzworld.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smartzworld.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3975"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/smartzworld.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3975\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smartzworld.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3978"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/smartzworld.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3975"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smartzworld.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3975"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smartzworld.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3975"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}