India VS South Africa ODI: More than 200 runs conceded in last two T20Is; what does it mean for the Indian team's bowling woes?

With the Indian team getting solid and stable with their batting, their bowling issue is rising consistently. The concern that started with Ravindra Jadeja getting ruled out has become much worse after Jasprit Bumrah's exclusion from the World Cup squad.

India has conceded two-plus scores in the last two T20Is against South Africa, which showed that the Indian side needs to address some areas of concern in bowling ahead of the mega-event in Australia. 

"We need to work on our bowling. We played against two quality sides, [and] we came across tough challenges. We need to see what better we can do," said Rohit Sharma.

The only problem of failure in bowling is the economic death of bowling

The T20 format can change a match's fate anytime during the death overs, and Indian bowlers have been struggling, especially in the penultimate over, while defending the total. 

In the Asia Cup, Bhuvneshwar Kumar failed twice in the Super four stage. Arshdeep Singh failed when he conceded 26 runs in the 19th over against South Africa. Deepak Chahar, who conceded nine runs in the first two overs against South Africa in the third T20I, ended up being smashed for 24 runs in the last. 

The failure of India's bowlers in death overs takes away the effort of the whole game from them, leaving them vulnerable in the end.

While Rohit Sharma looked to brush aside concerns and said, "Lot of the guys haven't been to Australia, which is why we wanted to go early. Play on some bouncy pitches in Perth and see what we can do there. Out of the 15, only 7-8 have been there before, so wanted to make an effort to go there early."

"We've organised a couple of practice games. Bumrah is a big miss, but there are a few guys in the reckoning," he added.

Besides the seamers, the spinners are also failing

Apart from death over concerns about stealing the show for team India, another problem lies. Though pacers struggle in death overs, spinners also fail to support seamers well in early overs. They are conceding equivalent runs and failing to take wickets as well. As spinners are seen struggling to take wickets or control the flow of runs here in India, the conditions are bound to be more challenging on bouncy Australian pitches. 

Former BCCI selector Saba Karim said, "However much he (Rohit Sharma) tries to deny it and try to give confidence to the bowlers, our death bowling is a big issue. I think it is posing a lot of headaches to the team management and to Rohit Sharma." 

So a primary concern lies in bowlers failing to control the flow of runs in death overs while defending or bowling first; it's a failure of the complete bowling unit that the team is ending up conceding 200-plus scores consecutively in the homeland. The bowling unit will need to buckle up; otherwise, it will just be a matter of a few overs, and it can cost India another major tournament to lose.