India’s shocking 0–2 defeat to South Africa in a home Test series has triggered a wave of criticism, with former India cricketer Sanjay Manjrekar slamming India's batting efforts. Reflecting on India’s inability to cross even 250 in any of their four innings, Manjrekar believed that the core problem lies in India's training. According to Manjrekar, India’s current generation of batters is “poorly trained” when it comes to diagnosing their own technical issues on turning tracks.
"So two reasons I believe 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," Sanjay Manjrekar said on his Instagram account.
Manjrekar uttered the names of Yashasvi Jaiswal, KL Rahul, and Rishabh Pant, all of whom failed to impose themselves on familiar home soil.
“I was looking at numbers; people like Yashasvi Jaiswal, KL Rahul, Shubman Gill and Rishabh Pant have played anything between nine to 12 Test matches away from home the last two years, and in India, not as many. And when they play a Test 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,” he said.
"They're all class players with good records behind them, but as I said, like NRIs, like strangers at home," Manjrekar added.