Hosts South Africa put on a brave fight as they chased down the 240-run target with some gutsy batting in the second innings of the second Test in Johannesburg. Skipper Dean Elgar guided his team to a memorable win, which also helped them level the series 1-1. Elgar's solid knock of unbeaten 96 runs was praised by former Team India cricketer Sunil Gavaskar. However, Gavaskar also pointed out certain captaincy decisions made by KL Rahul that aided Elgar in accumulating easy runs.
Gavaskar highlighted how Rahul had two fielders in the deep when Elgar was only looking to rotate the strike and take singles.
According to Gavaskar, Elgar isn't "one of the hookers of the ball" and therefore, Rahul got his field placements wrong.
"This was the first time actually that India have lost a Test match in which Virat Kohli as captain has not played. On KL Rahul, I would say giving Dean Elgar those singles at the start of the second innings was making life a little bit easy for him. Dean Elgar is not one of the hookers of the ball, so you have two men in the deep that does not make any sense. He was taking singles comfortably and scoring runs," Gavaskar said while speaking on Star Sports' post-match show.
The former cricketer also cited the not so "sharp" fielding which led to the South Africans winning the match.
"Indian fielding also could have been just a little bit sharper. I think it's the South Africans who won the game and I don't think the Indians lost it," he added.
The final game will be played from January 11 in Cape Town.