India’s incredible and unlikely streak of losing ODI tosses continued on December 3 during the second ODI against South Africa. Stand-in captain KL Rahul once again saw the coin fall the wrong way, extending India’s sequence of consecutive toss defeats to 20, a run that has carried on for more than two years. Since the ODI World Cup 2023 final in Ahmedabad, where India lost the toss to Australia, nothing has changed regardless of who has taken charge. Whether it has been Rohit Sharma, Shubman Gill or KL Rahul, the results have remained stubbornly unchanged. India have kept losing toss after toss, irrespective of how the matches have panned out.
Statistically, the probability of losing 20 tosses in a row stands at 0.00000095, which translates to roughly one in 1,048,576 – a staggering rarity in cricket.
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Second ODI
During the second ODI in Raipur, South Africa elected to bowl and made three changes, while Rahul chose to retain India’s winning combination. Speaking to former India head coach Ravi Shastri after the toss, Rahul could not hide his frustration.
“Honestly, that’s the most pressure I’ve had because we haven’t won a toss in a long time. I’ve been practising, but clearly it’s not working,” Rahul told Shastri as Temba Bavuma once again called correctly.
Rahul also explained India’s pre-series discussions regarding the impact of dew and how the team has been preparing for it across venues during this time of year in India.
“A lot of positives from the last game, so just trying to continue that. And, come out here, play hard cricket again. They pushed us last game as well. We know what to expect. The boys are looking in good shape. And I’m excited about this game. Before the series as well, we spoke about it. This is a time in India where there is a lot of dew. We’re expecting dew in every place that we play. So, the bowlers have spoken about it. A few tactics and a few things that we’ve spoken about, which I think we did really well in the last game. So, that’ll give our bowling team a lot of confidence,” he added.
Playing XIs for India vs South Africa 2nd ODI
South African Aiden, Wk), Matthew Breetzke, Furnace, Dewald Brevis, Jansen Marco, Corbin Bosch, Keshavi Maharaj, Nandre Burger, Lungi Ngidi.
India: Yashasvi Jaiswal, Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, Ruturaj Gaikwad, Washington Sundar, KL Rahul (c and wk), Ravindra Jadeja, Harshit Rana, Kuldeep Yadav, Arshdeep Singh, Prasidh Krishna.
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