Indian team concluded the six-match ODI series on a high note, winning five matches and completely steamrolling the South African team in their own backyard.
It was an amazing performance by the Indian players against a formidable South African unit who were at their full power barring a couple of players.
South Africa managed to win the fourth ODI, thanks to a late onslaught by Miller and Klaasen. But overall, the Indian team proved to be superior in all aspects of the game.
India also solidified their position at the top of the ICC ODI rankings with this 5-1 victory and created records.
Here are the Indian team players ratings for the ODI series:
Shikhar Dhawan- 8/10
The Indian opener had a decent ODI series with 323 runs to his name in 6 innings. He became the first Indian batsman to score a century in his 100th ODI. Dhawan’s impact in the innings came in form of the pace at which he scored his runs at the top. He always gave India a quick start and ensured he made up for the failures of his opening partner.
Rohit Sharma -4/10
Rohit Sharma’s South African tour proved to be a damp squib. The only highlight of his ODI series was his century (115), which made up the majority of his series total of 170. Rohit was highly affected by the pace, bounce, and swing produced by the South African bowlers and he even scored a duck in the series.
Virat Kohli- 10/10
Virat Kohli was truly brilliant in the series with the bat. 558 runs in 6 innings at an average of 186 and a strike rate of 99.46 with three centuries and one fifty; 54 fours and 6 sixes; shows how dominant was the Indian captain against the best South African bowlers on their own turf.
His highest score in the series was 160* and he remained unbeaten 2 other times. Captaincy wise, Kohli didn’t give an inch to the opposition and the one loss at Johannesburg ruined what would have been a perfect series for the Indian captain.
Ajinkya Rahane- 5/10
Ajinkya Rahane got to play in all the six matches on the trot at no.4 after a long time and his perfromance fell short of expectations. He scored a good 79 in the first match, but including that, he accumulated just 140 runs in 5 innings, he played in the series.
A big problem was his strike rate which stood at 76.92 and he got stuck while facing spinners or quick bowlers at the beginning of the innings and wasn’t able to rotate the strike fluently enough.
It was a wonderful chance for Rahane to redeem himself in the limited overs format, but he didn’t take full advantage of it and might rue the missed opportunity to cement himself at the no.4 position.
MS Dhoni- 4/10
MS Dhoni ended the series with 69 runs in 4 innings he played with a highest of 42*. He did become the 3rd wicketkeeper to take 600 catches in ODI format during the series. However, it was clearly evident that the team management was wasting the talents of the new Dhoni at no.6 position.
Dhoni was unable to hit the big shots and struggled to get the run rate moving in the last overs. He is a better fit at no.4 or no.5 in the batting order, from where he can dictate the pace of the game via running the hard singles and doubles, and hitting the occasional boundary.
The days when MS Dhoni could hit the first ball he faced for six are well and truly behind him, and it has to be accepted that Dhoni is now better at anchoring the innings, than finishing it.
Kedar Jadhav- 1/10
Kedar Jadhav played three matches in the series and got to bat in only one of them and scored 1 run and bowled 6 overs for 30 runs in the series before a hamstring injury ruled him out of the series. Much was expected from the newly designated finisher of Team India, but injury robbed him of the chance to showcase his skills.
Shreyas Iyer- 5/10
Shreyas Iyer came into the team in place of Jadhav and played 3 matches, scoring 48 runs with a best of 30 in two innings. Iyer was also suffering from a bout of butterfingers in the field, dropping two catches in the match that India lost in Johannesburg. But he kind of made it up with a brilliant catch in the next match. Iyer will get a few more chances in future, but he must grab them with both hands.
Bhuvneshwar Kumar- 4/10
Bhuvneshwar Kumar took two wickets and scored 40 runs in the 5 matches he played. In a complete contrast with his form in the Tests, Kumar wasn’t able to get the white ball to swing or do much in the ODIs and also gave runs with an economy of 6.09. Team management did the right thing by resting him in the final ODI after a hectic tour.
Jasprit Bumrah- 8/10
Jasprit Bumrah retained his form from the Test series in his favorite format of ODIs. Bumrah picked 8 wickets in 6 matches and was the one to rattle the South African top order more than once in the series. Bumrah was as brilliant as always in the death overs and assisted the spinners well in demolishing the South African team.
Hardik Pandya- 5/10
Hardik Pandya failed to do much with the bat in his role as the finisher in the 4 innings he got to play, making 26 runs in total. He picked up 4 wickets in the 6 matches he played, including that of AB de Villiers on multiple occasions. His brilliance came in the field with some brilliant catches and an important run out of Hashim Amla.
However, Pandya needs to show more consistency in his game on the field, rather than working on his hairstyle and hair color, to succeed for a long period of time.
Kuldeep Yadav- 10/10
Kuldeep Yadav, along with Yuzvendra Chahal proved to be a major problem for the South African batsmen. The left arm chinaman bowler demolished the Proteas batting whenever he came onto bowl and even picked up 3 wickets in an over once.
Yadav ended with a handsome haul of 17 wickets in 6 matches with a best of 4/23. His economy was just 4.32 and the way he flighted the ball, despite getting hit for some runs, was admirable. Kuldeep just couldn’t handle bowling with the wet ball in Johannesburg and went for runs, but that was just an anomaly.
Yuzvendra Chahal- 10/10
Yuzvendra Chahal partnered with Kuldeep to cement the notion that South Africa cannot play spin once and for all. Chahal picked 16 wickets in 6 matches including his first five-wicket haul of 5/22 and with an economy of 5.02. Chahal took care of batsmen from the top order, while Kuldeep wiped off the tail and vice versa. Chahal wasn’t afraid of getting hit for a few sixes, until and unless, he got the wicket in the end.
Shardul Thakur- 5/10
Shardul Thakur warmed the bench for five matches in the series and got hit for a slew of boundaries in the only match he played. But Thakur came back brilliant to pick up his career-best figures of 4/52 and even took a catch to round off a brilliant performance in his first outing for India for quite some time.
