Grass looks greener at Bangalore

South Africa’s Faf du Plessis (left) watches as his teammates Dane Vilas (centre) and Jean-Paul Duminy cover their heads to avoid getting hit from a ball during a training session on the eve of their second Test against India in Bangalore on Friday. (Source: AP)

Bharat Sundaresan
Bangalore

If AB de Villiers was candid about it, Hashim Amla was a tad more subtle. On back-to-back days in Bangalore, the two senior-most members of the South African camp have come out and tried to circumnavigate any talk about the pitch here.

They have their reasons. In many ways, it wasn’t the pitch that defeated them in Mohali. It was what they thought it was going to do that got to them. They let the dread grow on them.

Be it Faf du Plessis before the first Test began or Dean Elgar after he had snared four unlikely wickets on the first day, the South Africans spoke so much about the devils in the wicket that they started believing in them. It showed in the way they kept succumbing to deliveries that didn’t quite turn square. Amla, who was guilty of letting a straight ball smash into his stumps without any hesitation, described it best on Friday when he said, “The pitch was what it was. It was the lack of turn that did us in.”

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Despite this conscious effort to put the pitch out of their minds, the one being prepared at Chinnaswamy Stadium wasn’t the kinds that the Proteas would have really minded taking a sneak-peek of. If anything it would have been a tad comforting for the visitors who have been in India for over 50 days now. Not that it was like any they would find back home. But for starters it had a green tinge, though not to the same extent as Thursday, and more importantly didn’t have the texture of dried-up clay with cracks appearing on the top-surface.

The overcast skies overseeing proceedings at the Chinnaswamy, and the coolness in the air even during the afternoon when the South Africans turned up for practice, was a bonus. If anything, they couldn’t have asked for better conditions to try and level the series in Bangalore.

Duminy returns

Even though they will be without their best two fast bowlers suited for these conditions, you just expect the likes of Kagiso Rabada and Morne Morkel to get more out of this wicket. And in Kyle Abbott, they have a swing bowler who will keep testing the Indian batsmen by pitching balls consistently in the danger zone and moving it both ways in conditions that will favour his style of bowling. But it wasn’t their bowling that let the Proteas down in Mohali. Like Amla put it, it was a ‘quality effort’ by the spinners in particular to bowl out India for scores of 200 and 201. Even if they will be without Vernon Philander and Dale Steyn, their spinners did well enough to keep Virat Kohli & Co honest with the two partnerships between Murali Vijay and Cheteshwar Pujara being the real difference-maker in the eventual outcome.

And there’s still enough quality in their batting ranks to suggest that they can recover from the debacle that was Mohali. In Amla and de Villiers – the milestone man who’s tried everything from calling himself a ‘not so nice guy on the field’ to sidestepping the importance of this match but still failed in his bid to underplay the hype around his 100th Test – they have the two foremost batsmen in Test cricket presently. Faf du Plessis, whose failure was surprising considering the subcontinent style with which he plays spin, is still their most dependable No.3. And both their openers, Dean Elgar and Stiaan van Zyl, despite their inexperience, showed grit and gumption to carve out their own ways of tackling the Mohali pitch, and succeeded to an extent in at least one of the two innings.

The return of JP Duminy from injury though in some ways makes up for the growing absentee-list, simply based on the balance that he brings to this South African team. In Mohali they looked a batsman short from even before the match began. In Duminy, they have a game-changer, who’s ability against spin, both in terms of attack and defence, has improved drastically in the last year or so and an off-spinner who has proved to be the perfect foil for the pacers in the team.

“He bats in a crucial position down at 5, 6 and 7. In all forms of cricket, that’s the business end of the game. He brings a lot of know-how and experience,” as Amla said.

India get pace

Speaking of comebacks, India too will gladly welcome the return of their pace spearhead, Ishant Sharma, and these are conditions that the lanky pacer – who now ties his hair in a samurai ponytail – should relish, especially after his exploits on the barren wickets he got in Sri Lanka. Chinnaswamy will not see R Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja come into their own as early as they did in Mohali and it will be up to Ishant to give India the early breakthroughs with the new-ball, which they have kind of come to expect from him of late.

“I’m very delighted that Ishant is back. The way he is bowling and the way he bowled in Sri Lanka brings a lot to the table. It is not just about the spinners. He’s bowled well in sub-continent conditions, knows how to reverse swing the ball, can lead the pace attack,” said Kohli, who scored a hundred the last time India played a Test here.

The South Africans might not carry the same indomitable aura of the all-conquering Aussies but there’s a quiet confidence about them on foreign soil. So it should be, considering their enormous success overseas. And it comes from the fact that they have historically not dwelled too much on defeats and rather worked a way to build from them. The records say that they have never won a series after losing the first Test away from home-this is the sixth straight time that India have taken a series lead at home by the way-but there have been plenty of occasions where they have fought back gamely to draw parity. And in de Villiers’ 100th Test, the stage seems set for them at Chinnaswamy to do just that.