TheSportsCampus

< Prev		Next >

The coup-de-grace to the first test was delivered in clinical fashion by South Africa as India folded up for a second time on day 4 itself to hand the visitors and unassailable 1-0 lead in the 2-match test series. The underrated Paul Harris slowly squeezed the life out of the Indians as they crashed to their first defeat under MS Dhoni, by an innings and 6 runs.

The win gives South Africa their third innings victory in India in the last decade. Interestingly, they are the only ones to manage the feat. This makes them easily the most dominant visitor to India, over and above the Aussies, and proves they more than make up for their spin shortcomings by outperforming in other areas.

Like Virender Sehwag in the first innings, Sachin Tendulkar played the lone hand this time. In the process, he got to his 46th test hundred, and his third on the trot after the brace in Bangladesh. It was an innings with the perfect blend of defensive mindset and utilization of every scoring opportunity. However, it was always going to be difficult considering how support was hard to find at the other end.

The little master gave a lesson to one and all as to how exactly one must tackle good bowling in the face of adversity with a near-chanceless innings. He was the only one who successfully came to terms with the line Paul Harris was bowling. He stepped out and kicked at deliveries instead of letting them on to the pads, and always came to the pitch of the ball when playing a stroke. He was unlucky to get out to the same bowler in unfortunate fashion, as the ball hit the thigh pad, caught the arm guard and then fell, of all places, onto his furniture.

At the start of the day, it looked like Murali Vijay might be game for the long grind in the middle. He certainly did look fairly comfortable against Dale Steyn and Morne Morkel with his compact opener's technique. Then, after facing 90 deliveries for his 32, just as it looked like he along with Tendulkar might bail out India, Vijay top-edged an attempted sweep of spinner Paul Harris.

Graeme Smith clearly had decided that today he would give his pacers a well-deserved rest. The baton was passed on to Harris. Prior to the series, the largest debate has been revolving around Harris' capabilities at the highest level. Everyone expected the Indians to climb all over him and smash him to all parts. Today they got a fitting riposte from the man himself. Harris had stated earlier that he is no ‘miracle' bowler, has no doosras, googlies or carrom balls, just a stock delivery bowled with unerring precision.

Today, that precision paid rich dividends as his strategy of consistently bowling in the rough outside the leg stump of the right-handers paid off. That's all he did all day, bowl the same ‘negative' line over and over again. The result were very much positive, as he kept the Indians in a viselike grip, gave away no scoring opportunities and topped it off with the prized wickets of Vijay, Tendulkar and Dhoni. His detractor will claim it was a very defensive strategy, and that the wickets came thanks to the vagaries of the pitch and not his own talent, but no one can deny he overshadowed India's far more fancied spinner Harbhajan Singh. After Vijay fell trying an attacking stroke, it seemed as if the Indians were reluctant to attack him and force a change of line.

After Vijay came Badrinath, and though he looked in good touch, the inability to find the gaps probably had him chasing a widish one from Wayne Parnell and edging to Boucher for 6. Dhoni came in and hung around in his Dravidian avatar with Tendulkar for as many as 112 balls to score 25, before Harris accounted for both.

With both gone, it was only a matter of time before the rest of the batting caved in. Wriddhiman Saha avoided a pair on debut and hung around for 101 painstaking deliveries, scoring 36. He forged fifty-run partnerships with Harbhajan Singh and Zaheer Khan, both of whom, with nothing to lose, enjoyed themselves at the crease and added 30-odd runs apiece.

With just 7 runs left to make South Arica bat again, the ball was tossed to, you guessed it, Dale Steyn. The match simply had to end on his terms. He cleaned up both Saha and last man Amit Mishra to hand his side the victory.

The Man-of-the-Match was awarded to Hashim Amla for his masterful 253, which, as he said, was one of his best knocks. The lingering memory of this test, though, still remains Dale Steyn running through the Indians. Virender Sehwag himself said that Steyn is the best bowler he has ever faced, and that is huge praise coming from a man who always speaks his mind and is honest to the core.

India now move to the Eden Gardens with a lot of soul searching to do. VVS Laxman has been picked in the squad for the second test, and it would be safe to assume that he would be fit enough to start after narrowly missing out here, Suresh Raina has been drafted in as cover for Rohit Sharma, but after his half century in the first innings and given Raina's inability to handle short pitched bowling one would expect Badrinath to retain his place in the first eleven, Hashim Amla said in the post-match presentation that he hopes for bigger crowds at the Eden Gardens. We hope so too, and we'll probably get them as well, with the world's most cricket-crazy crowd hailing from Kolkata.

Mini Scorecard:

South Africa 1st innings: 558/6 decl.
Hashim Amla 253*                         Zaheer Khan 31-7-96-3
Jacques Kallis 173                         Harbhajan Singh 46-1-166-2

India 1st innings: 233 all out
Virender Sehwag 109                    Dale Steyn 16.4-6-51-7
Subramaniam Badrinath 56           Wayne Parnell 7-1-31-1

India 2nd innings (following on): 319 all out
Sachin Tendulkar 100                  Dale Steyn 3/57
Harbhajan Singh 39                     Paul Harris 3/76

File Photograph Copyright: BCB