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'Important To Know The Lengths..' - Zaheer Khan Criticises Prasidh & Shardul

Kashish Chadha

image-lqovs4o7Prasidh Krishna showed his inexperience on Test debut (Twitter)

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Zaheer Khan was disappointed with India's bowling effort on Day 2 of the Boxing Day Test against South Africa in Centurion. The visitors lost a great opportunity to make a comeback in the game and conceded an 11-run lead by stumps at 256/5. 

The former India spearhead was especially displeased with the effort during a potentially match-losing post-lunch session where India's backup pacers Prasidh Krishna and Shardul Thakur erred repeatedly in their lengths and South Africa plundered 145 runs for the loss of just two wickets. 

Having reached 245 in their batting effort thanks to a memorable century from KL Rahul, the Rohit Sharma-led side was expected to make use of a seaming deck and make life tough for the Proteas. 

As it panned out, the expensive two-end burst from debutant Prasidh and Thakur allowed stoic opener Dean Elgar and the rest to dominate the all-crucial phase of the game. 


Zaheer Slams India's Lack Of Planning 

For Zaheer, it wasn't so much the runs that hurt the former left-arm stalwart but the lack of Plan B once Thakur and Prasidh had felt frustrated finding minimal rewards off the good-length region. 

After feeling annoyed at the lack of edges, the two pacers gave away a flurry of boundaries. They constantly fell too short and too full, even against the usually defensive Elgar, who struck 23 boundaries off just 211 deliveries in the middle for his 140 not out. 

"It's important to know what lengths to hit in these conditions, either to get wickets or to keep the batters quiet. Shardul and Prasidh failed to find that length today," Zaheer told Cricbuzz. 

"The session after Lunch when both of them were operating together, that was the time when South Africa played a lot of shots. At that time, India should have had a Plan B or should've made some fielding changes to stop the flow of runs, which would have helped them stay in the contest."

India did bounce back with a wicket apiece for Prasidh and Mohammed Siraj after the tea break. However, with Elgar still intact and five wickets remaining, the game was firmly in South Africa's grasp by the close of play, with the visitors now requiring a complete turnaround of fortunes on Day 3 to set up a battle for the second half. 

"With how the pitch was behaving, it didn't look like South Africa batters would go past the score put up by the Indians. But that happened. The Indian bowling unit will sit down after the end of the day and talk about what went wrong," Zaheer added.