Team India's tour of South Africa came to an end on Sunday as they were whitewashed by the hosts 3-0 in the ODI series. This was followed by the Test series loss, and there could be some repercussions after India's recent disappointing run.
Rohit Sharma was appointed India's ODI captain ahead of the South Africa tour but unfortunately, he picked up a hamstring injury just a couple of days ahead of the Test series and was subsequently ruled out of the series. Further tests carried out on Sharma revealed that he wouldn't have been able to recover in the time for the ODI series as well, so KL Rahul was handed the captaincy in his stead.
But India were utterly disappointing in the ODI series, failing to trouble South Africa at all. Be it batting or bowling, the Men in Blue were second fiddle in both departments. Now that tour has come to a painful end, there could be some chopping and changing ahead of India's next assignment.
Rohit Sharma will take over the captaincy from KL Rahul and with that, he could axe a couple of players, including middle-order batsman Shreyas Iyer.
India's middle-order failed miserably in the past matches, and Iyer, in particular, failed to leave any sort of impact with his batting. He consistently failed to convert his starts into big scores and was easy prey for the South African bowlers, who had a proper plan for Iyer, as they targetted his weakness of playing short balls.
For the past few years, the number 4 batting spot has been India's Achilles heel, Shreyas Iyer was touted to be the player to address that issue, however, he has been ineffective lately, and instead, Rohit could well promote Suryakumar Yadav in that spot as per reports.
Rohit knows the ability of Suryakumar Yadav well enough from their time together at Mumbai Indians (MI) in the Indian Premier League (IPL), and thus the road ahead looks tough for Shreyas Iyer with Suryakumar waiting in the wings.
