Amla’s men clutching at straws
One hour into the game, a man in crisp blue shirt tucked into black trousers, ran out to the middle with a broom in his hand. He headed straight to the umpire Ian Gould who pointed his fingers to the sand pit below. The man knelt down, the broom swished furiously and dust swirled up and away, and debris greased the broom. The pitch at Jamtha, in the outskirts of Nagpur, had indeed turned out to be a “beach”, soaking up all the day’s attention.
Sometimes, a day at cricket can throw up aural memories. A piece of sound that stays with you. Often, it comes from the action in the middle, but sometimes produced by oneself. Wednesday brought out a cackle. A here-we-go-again kind of chuckle at the pitch and at South Africans’ woes – an impertinent and harsh laugh, maybe, but an unsurprising, and honest, emotion. A day where it seems almost dishonest to have an open mind and expect South Africans to surprise us on Day two.
All the odds are stacked against them. A bruised pitch whose powdery cover has already withered, revealing a rough sandpit where even the agencies that do ridiculously faulty exit polls for Indian elections can get the verdict right: a quick, painful finish. South Africa would hope AB de Villiers and Hashim Amla can pull off a heist and it would make for an exhilarating watch, but either way, regardless of the team that goes down, the end feels already within handshaking distance.
Ind vs SA, 3rd Test: India spinners strike after South Africa bowl out hosts for 215
Top-class thriller at Eden
- India eye rough for smooth ending at Eden
India eye rough for smooth ending at Eden
Steyn-gunned Board sends SOS for Eden turner,curator says no
Steyn-gunned Board sends SOS for Eden turner,curator says no
Vijay the exception
It was also a day where the young Indian batsmen continued to show how out of place they can look in certain home conditions. Someone like M Vijay continues to be an exception. The frequent shimmy down the track, the decisive press-back, and the twirling wrist to douse the fiery turning deliveries were on display but he fell to South Africa’s best bowler of the day.
It was Morne Morkel who sparkled with his reverse swing, an art that usually cues up dramatic and thrilling visuals but his was a cerebral show. Often, he had the shiny side of the ball on the outside and got it to either straighten or wobble away.He took out three top-order batsmen, each of which deserves a few peeks at the highlights reel. Vijay fell to a delivery that landed around off stump and hit his pad in front of the middle but the angle of release and the anticipation had set him up for a nip-backer. Instead, it started to hold its line in the end, squaring-up Vijay who was pinged on his back pad.
It was the afternoon spell, though, when Morkel really began to harass the batsmen. The set-ups were a tease, an obvious but inescapable trap. Ajinkya Rahane must have known what was coming. All through the period when the ball kept tilting away from him, somewhere in his mind, he would have known one was going to dart in. Will it be this one, or the next and then when it eventually came, it felt like an unsurprising end. One of the thrilling slow-motion replays had perfectly captured Morkel’s skill. Just before the release, there was a whip of the wrist, a deliberate skilful snap that gave the ball its direction. It was a full delivery but not Pakistani-full, not those classic booming inswinging crushers, but more modern in its scope. There was still some way to go after landing to make it more like a seaming delivery than a swinging one. Enough time and movement for Rahane to panic and come up with a despairing waft. If it was any fuller, he might have stabbed it out. There wasn’t much celebration from Morkel, just an exhale of air as he passed the batsman.
Morkel masterful
The plan against Kohli was even simpler. Just keep taking it away. With a ‘thank you, come again’ kind of finish. Kohli has this tendency to keep stretching across, pushing his bat well in front of the body. The ball rushed past the outside edge a few times before Morkel made an adjustment that must have given him great satisfaction. It was another delivery that tailed away with the shiny side but this one was that bit fuller. The reverse of what he did with Rahane. There wasn’t much time for Kohli to stop the forward thrust of the wrist and hold the bat inside the line; this one kissed the wood en route to the keeper. The afternoon spell read 4-2-8-2, and it was in fact 2.2-1-4-2 at one point.
All through it, though, and especially afterwards, as the Indians slowly inched ahead, it was difficult to shake off thoughts about what lay in store for South African batsmen. Indians though had to stay in the present and first put up a decent total which they did courtesy a gritty knock from Wriddhiman Saha, who as Sanjay Bangar, India’s batting coach, later said, “put a price on his wicket”, and a intelligently breezy knock from Ravindra Jadeja, who didn’t waste any run-scoring opportunity.
The mini-drama began when the Indian innings ended, giving nine nervy overs to South Africa. After wasting two overs with Ishant Sharma, the real deal began. Ashwin and Jadeja in tandem – curling and looping offbreaks, and skidding, rushing mix of straight ones and occasional left-arm breakers. A most traditional off break, that had flight and turn, was enough to dispose van Zyl and when the South Africans sent in Imran Tahir as a human sacrifice, Jadeja knocked the off peg. And that cackle began.
