For 20 straight ODI tosses, India kept landing on the wrong side, and the fans were smiling through the absurdity. On Saturday in Vaisakhapatnam, KL Rahul finally flipped the script – with a little help from the team analyst.
India’s stand-in ODI captain broke a one-in-a-million streak when he won the toss before the third ODI against South Africa, ending a run of 20 consecutive toss defeats that stretched back to the 2023 World Cup final and spanned multiple captains.
“We’ve lost 20 tosses, so 21 may not be that bad”: KL Rahul
KL Rahul later revealed that this wasn’t just another walk-up-to-the-ground-and-flip moment. It came with its own carefully crafted ritual courtesy of India’s performance analyst.
“What worked for me today, we had our analyst, Hari, who gave me a few tricks. He asked me to spin it from my left hand and cross my right hand,” Rahul said in a BCCI video, smiling as he walked viewers through the routine that finally brought an end to the bizarre run.
“At this point, I mean, before the toss, there’s a bunch of superstitions and a bunch of things that everyone’s been saying. Virat gave me a different opinion. I stuck with Hari because he said the same thing last game as well, and he’s been the most pushy out of everybody else,” he added.
The context explains why a normally low-key part of match-day had turned into a subplot of its own. India had lost 20 tosses on the bounce, a sequence improbable enough to be mocked on broadcasts and in dressing-room banter alike. The odds of losing 20 straight 50-50 calls are roughly one in 1,048,576 – the sort of number that makes even hardened pros reach for a superstition or two.
“So I said, okay, let’s give it a try here. How bad can it be? We’ve lost 20 tosses, so I was like, 21 may not be that bad. I went in with no expectations, and I’m happy that we won the toss,” Rahul said.
The win itself mattered, of course – winning the toss in the decider allowed India to shape the game on their terms at a venue where conditions can change quickly under lights. But what will live longer in the dressing-room chatter is how the streak finally snapped and who was the one to break it.