No Kagiso Rabada for Rohit-Kohli as pacer gets ruled out of 2nd Test & rest of India tour

by · Inside Sport India

Kagiso Rabada hasn't featured for South Africa since over a month now.

South Africa have dealt a blow as star pacer Kagiso Rabada has now been ruled out of the second upcoming Test match against India. Rabada, who missed the opening Test too has not been able to recover from rib bone stress injury and will now miss the ODIs that start from November 30. It would be a shame that the returning Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli won’t be facing one of the best pacers of this generation.

Kagiso Rabada out of entire India tour

This year has been a bit difficult for Rabada. First he missed the majority of the IPL 2025 after he failed a drug test. While he bowled fantastically and played his part in winning the World Test Championship (WTC) for South Africa, Rabada hasn’t had the best of his years so far. In all international games, he has picked up 31 wickets in 2025, the least he has taken in the last nine years (min 10 games).

In order to prepare for the big tour of India, Rabada sat out from the ODIs and T20Is against Pakistan earlier this month. South Africa lost both series 2-1 but more importantly, Rabada got injured during training before the opening Test against India. Thanks to the poor pitch in Kolkata, the Proteas didn’t feel the absence of Rabada, as the Simon Harmer-led bowling attack helped the side to register their first Test win in India after 15 years.

“The injury has been closely monitored by the Proteas medical team, and due to ongoing discomfort in the affected area, Rabada has been withdrawn from the remainder of the tour,” Cricket South Africa said in a statement on Friday morning, a day off from the start of the game. “He will continue the initial phase of his four-week rehabilitation program with the Proteas medical team before returning to South Africa at the conclusion of the second Test.” Lungi Ngidi has already joined the team in Guwahati.

Now, with the ODI series that will be played between November 30 and December 6, South Africa will hugely miss Rabada. However, this will be some respite for the likes of Rohit and Kohli, who would want to continue scoring big runs. They now only play one format and Rabada could’ve added trouble to the duo.

IND vs SA Series Schedule

  • Test Matches

    • Fri, Nov 14, 2025: South Africa vs India, 1st Test, Kolkata (South Africa won by 30 runs)
    • Sat, Nov 22, 2025: India vs South Africa, 2nd Test, Guwahati

  • ODI Matches

    • Sun, Nov 30, 2025: India vs South Africa, 1st ODI, Ranchi (1:30 PM)
    • Wed, Dec 3, 2025: India vs South Africa, 2nd ODI, Raipur (1:30 PM)
    • Sat, Dec 6, 2025: India vs South Africa, 3rd ODI, Visakhapatnam (1:30 PM)

  • T20I Matches

    • Tue, Dec 9, 2025: India vs South Africa, 1st T20I, Cuttack (7:00 PM)
    • Thu, Dec 11, 2025: India vs South Africa, 2nd T20I, New Chandigarh (7:00 PM)
    • Sun, Dec 14, 2025: India vs South Africa, 3rd T20I, Dharamsala (7:00 PM)
    • Wed, Dec 17, 2025: India vs South Africa, 4th T20I, Lucknow (7:00 PM)
    • Fri, Dec 19, 2025: India vs South Africa, 5th T20I, Ahmedabad (7:00 PM)