Virat Kohli's 76 Go In Vain As South Africa Beat India By An Inning And 32 Runs

Virat Kohli, the lone warrior for Team India in the second inning, could not avoid the defeat in the Boxing Day Test against South Africa. The experienced Kagiso Rabada and debutant Nandre Burger led the pace, with Burger concluding with impressive figures of 4 for 33. India's batting display was lackluster, lasting only 34.1 overs in the third innings.

It stood out as one of the most feeble batting performances by the Test team in recent times, mustering just 131 runs while the South African pacers wreaked havoc.

This was Team India's one of the worst performing matches, in which, Rohit and men got out for 245 and 131 runs, resulting in a major defeat by an innings and 32 runs.

After the match, Indian skipper Rohit Sharma said, "Yes, we had a performance like this here. But, don't forget, what we did in Australia and England. In Australia, we won the series, there our batters stepped up. In England, we drew a series, we shone with both bat and ball."

"These types of performances happen. It's not that we don't know how to bat outside India. At times, the opposition plays better than us and wins matches. I think that's what happened here. It's not like the opposition batted 110 overs and we didn't bat as many putting together both innings. In the last 4 tours outside India, go and see our records (batting numbers)," he added.

Rohit expressed India's intention to move past the Centurion Test defeat and set their sights on improving their performance in Cape Town, where the New Year's Test will commence on January 3.

"Absolutely, that's the job of a captain (putting pressure). It's not always going to be happy days on the field for the captain. It's days like these in which a captain needs to stand up and just get around with the team, more than anything else.

"Of course, we are going to analyse what we could have done better. But, I think it's important to leave a loss like this right here and not take it with us to Cape Town. But, yeah, we can learn from what went wrong," Rohit added.

"When you take up the job, this is what you sign up for. I have full confidence in the guys we have now. It's about making sure we stand with each other, at this point in time," Indian skipper further added.