South Africa vs India: "Tactically Big Mistake," Ravi Shastri criticizes Rohit's decision in the match

The Indian Cricket Team haven't had a great second day of the South Africa vs India 1st Test match in Centurion. When bad light forced early stumps, South Africa had already taken an 11-run lead with five wickets remaining courtesy of Dean Elgar's beautiful unbeaten 140. Before that KL Rahul scored 101 to help India reach 245 after a disastrous start. The start of India's bowling was not bad as Mohammed Siraj dismissed Aiden Markram early.

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But Dean Elgar and Tony de Zorzi constructed a good partnership as South Africa were looking comfortable and the score had reached 91/1 with Elgar completing his half-century.

Former Indian Coach Ravi Shastri did not like using Prasidh Krishna and Shardul Thakur right after lunch. He criticized the decision and explained why it was the wrong decision in the first place.

"On any pecking order, these two would have been the last to start the proceedings (after lunch)," said Ravi Shastri during commentary on Star Sports.

"That's something that we've discussed multiple times when I was the coach. And more often than not we decided to go with the best two bowlers at the start of the session. If you cast your mind back, India would feel they have missed a massive trick in the first half hour of play. Two bowlers they started with, that tactically was a big mistake."

Sanjay Manjrekar agreed with Ravi Shastri's opinion and said, "India missed the trick. This is something Rahul Dravid and Rohit Sharma must have thought about during the break and then decided to go with Prasidh and Shardul."

South Africa's score was 256/5 -lead by 11 runs- with Elgar (140) and Marco Jansen (3) unbeaten at the crease at the time of Day 2 Stumps. India would feel that they failed to solve the only riddle of the match and that was Dean Elger who is playing a magnificent inning in the last test series of his career.

The last session of the day started with the debutant David Bedingham scoring a half-century. However, Mohammed Siraj provided India with a much-needed breakthrough, breaking the solid partnership.