A series that casts a shadow over South Africa's future

Metrics to measure South Africa's abjectly poor performance at the Kotla on Tuesday are not in short supply. Only thrice in their 647 men's ODIs, and just once when they have batted first, have they been bowled out for fewer than their dismal total of 99, and never by a subcontinent side.

Thus never before in South Africa's 90 matches in the format against India have they been dismissed for so few runs. Only five times have they been shunted out in fewer deliveries than the 27.1 overs that comprised their shocking innings, and never before by India. Never before have India, batting second, won an ODI against South Africa, this time by seven wickets, after batting for only 19.1 overs.

You get the picture. But just out of the frame an even less edifying reality looms - all 14 players in South Africa's T20 World Cup squad were part of the mess this series became. Seven of them were in Tuesday's XI and will carry the scars into their future endeavours, starting when South Africa play their first match of the tournament in Hobart on October 24.

The format and the conditions will be different, but how much of what happened in an ODI series that India won 2-1 despite fielding a veritable second-string side - their first XI is already in Australia - and especially in Delhi on Tuesday will the South Africans pack into the darkest corners of their luggage for the trip Down Under?

"We've taken some good lessons and we've had some good chats behind closed doors to speak about problems... or not problems but things we can get a lot better at," Mark Boucher told a press conference. "That will stand us in good stead going to Australia, where conditions are completely different. We're OK. It's disappointing to lose, but we have a massive competition around the corner and that's what we're gearing ourselves up for.

"Keeping the guys fresh mentally and physically is going to be vital. Then we'll get the best results. Australia will suit our fast bowlers a lot better. We need to keep the aggression there. In this last one-day game there wasn't enough aggression. The surprising thing for me was that India's attack, in the one-dayers especially, bowled with far more aggression than what we did."

Quinton de Kock, Heinrich Klaasen, David Miller and Tabraiz Shamsi came to India from the CPL, and Temba Bavuma, Bjorn Fortuin and Reeza Hendricks from the Namibia Global T20. Wayne Parnell, Rilee Rossouw and Tristan Stubbs saw gametime in The Hundred, and Marco Jansen, Keshav Maharaj, Janneman Malan, Aiden Markram, Lungi Ngidi, Anrich Nortje, Andile Phehlukwayo and Kagiso Rabada were involved in various aspects of South Africa's tour to England. That's the entire squad for the India ODIs. Only Malan is not going to the T20 World Cup. Fortuin, Jansen and Phehlukwayo will be there as travelling reserves.

Given that workload, Boucher said, something had to give: "With the schedule that we've had you can't expect the players to be up for every single game. That's when you rely on your technical side and your mental side to pull you through. We've been a little bit weak in both those departments. Today especially there were a couple of soft dismissals up front and maybe one or two technical things on a pitch that was uneven in its turn - one turned, one didn't - and we were found out there."

The fact that India were able to field a competitive team despite the absence of their stars told its own story of the country's ability to produce more quality players than any other. "The Indian side we played against were fresh; they were bouncing around," Boucher said. "Our guys were fatigued."

But wait. There's still more. The series result further complicates South Africa's difficult route to next year's ODI World Cup. They have five Super League matches left; three against England in January, two against the Netherlands in March, all at home. West Indies, who have played all of their Super League games, are currently in eighth place with South Africa 11th. Only the top eight will qualify directly for the 2023 World Cup. Three more victories would take South Africa past West Indies in the standings.

Sri Lanka and Ireland, who have six and three matches left, could sneak ahead of the South Africans. It's difficult to imagine the ninth-placed Irish earning three victories against Bangladesh when they meet in May, even at home - which Ireland would need to do to rise above West Indies - and the Lankans will have their work cut out beating Afghanistan, at home in January, and New Zealand, away in March, in series of three games each. But all Sri Lanka, who are currently in 10th place, need to do to finish ahead of the South Africans is to earn at least one more win than them from their remaining matches. The sides who aren't in the top eight when they complete their Super League campaigns will fight it out in a qualifier in Zimbabwe in June for the remaining two places in the 10-team 2023 World Cup.

As if all that wasn't distracting enough, South Africa's series against England will be staged during the SA20 and the games against the Dutch could coincide with the IPL, which will likely feature some of the South Africans' best players.

"That's not ideal," Boucher said. "The reason we are in this situation is that we haven't always had continuity in our one-day team, and there's been various reasons for that - players leaving to come to the IPL and Covid. The guys will know what's required against the Netherlands and England. We've got to win those games, and if we don't we've got to accept the fact that we've got to go and qualify for the next World Cup. We understand the situation we're in and we'll have to man up and face it when it comes our way."

Perhaps the uncertainties inherent to those scenarios cast a shadow over South Africa on Tuesday. It wouldn't have helped that, with Bavuma and Maharaj sidelined by illness, the visitors went into the match with their third captain in as many games: Miller, who has led them in six T20Is but never before in an ODI. But no captain would have been able to do much about a batting line-up that shambled from one calamity to the next.

Only Malan, Klaasen and Jansen reached double figures in an innings in which the last six wickets crashed for 33 runs in 50 deliveries. Only Klaasen, who scored 34 off 42, faced as many as 30 balls. No partnership was worth more than the 23 shared by Klaasen and Miller.

None of India's bowlers conceded as many as five runs an over. Kuldeep Yadav's 4/18 in 25 balls led a spin contingent that comprised half of India's attack, bowled more than half the overs, and took all but two of the wickets.

The pitch was responsive but far from unfair, and India used the conditions well but not well enough to dominate as utterly as they did. South Africa were at least as complicit in their downfall as their opponents, playing as if they had forgotten most of what they have learnt over the years about coming to terms with spin in subcontinent conditions. They were flatfooted and tentative, and looked as if they would rather have been anywhere else than at the Kotla contesting the deciding match of a series.

Soon, they will be somewhere else: in Australia. At a World Cup. At least they don't have to qualify.