Cricket

“It’s really embarrassing” - Irfan Pathan rips into the Indian Test team after 0-2 Test series drubbing to South Africa

Irfan Pathan heavily criticized the Indian Test team after their 0-2 series loss to South Africa, stating, "It’s really embarrassing" and that a "400-plus run defeat is unacceptable at home." He questioned the batting unit's lack of fight and application.

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Former Indian all-rounder and commentator Irfan Pathan has slammed the Indian Test team, led by Rishabh Pant, for their poor outing against South Africa in the second Test as they suffered a 408-run heavy loss in Guwahati.

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Speaking exclusively on his YouTube channel, Pathan emphasised that it was really embarrassing to see India losing a Test series at home. Interestingly, this was India’s second consecutive Test series defeat at home to a SENA nation after earlier losing to New Zealand by 0-3 last year.

"It’s really embarrassing. The way India has played Test cricket at home recently against South Africa is just shocking. This has been going on for a while. They got badly beaten by New Zealand at home too. Now, here, in a two-match Test series against South Africa, they lost 0-2, and it didn’t even seem like they had the skills in batting or bowling. If you look man-to-man, even the South African spinners, whether it’s Harmer or Maharaj, they bowled much better," Irfan said on his YouTube channel.

Furthermore, Pathan asserted that India doesn’t have too many pure batters in its line-up, which was one of the reasons behind the 0-2 drubbing at home, adding that Test matches can’t be won with too many all-rounders in the playing XI. 

"How are you going to save the match? You’ve got to play the whole day. You just won’t be able to hold on. You need a pure batter. You absolutely need one. Changes have to be made. Talking about pure batters in this Test match, you’ve got Sai Sudharsan, KL Rahul and Yashasvi Jaiswal. These three are pure batters. The rest of your players are all-rounders: some wicketkeeper-batters, some bowling all-rounders, some batting all-rounders. When you have so many all-rounders, you’ll struggle in the specialist roles. We need to plan a roadmap for that going forward in Test cricket," he added.

India slipped to the fifth rank in the World Test Championship 2025-27 points table after this Test series defeat to South Africa.

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