South Africa on brink of defeat in third Test

Prem Panicker

Amazing, isn't it, how the latter part of this game is a mirror image of the Calcutta Test?

There, the South African batsmen seized the initiative with some brilliant, aggressive batting in the second innings. Here, the Indians did it.

There, the Indians were set a target of 460. Here, the South Africans face 361.

There, South Africa declared an hour after lunch. Here, India declared on the stroke of lunch.

There, the Indians went on the defensive - and paid with wickets for their error, on a track where runs were there to be had. Here, the South Africans tried the same tactic - and are paying the price for that with half the side back in the pavilion for next to nothing.

Coincidence? Sure - but one likely to have some very interesting implications in a longer run. But we will get to that later, here's the game, as happened...

India resumed this morning on 270/5, with Azharuddin batting on 88, and Dravid on 33.

For India, the task was to keep the game going at least till lunch, possibly beyond - because irrespective of the target finally set, India could not afford to give the rival side too much time in which to make a bid for it. And secondly, to keep the runs coming at a fair old clip, aiming to add at least another 100 or so before declaring, setting a 400-plus target for South Africa.

For the bowling side, the task was simple - get one, if possible both, overnight batsmen out fast, run through the tail and try to keep the target within the 350, 360 mark, then go for it with controlled aggression.

The wicket was as it has been all these days - and this point needs repeated emphasis, in light of what has been talked of, pre-match, as a 'minefield', loaded for the spinners. There was turn for the spinners - but also seam for the fast bowlers. And with a stiff cross breeze blowing almost through the day, there was swing, and even the dreaded reverse swing, if you knew how to get it and, more importantly, to control it.

In the event, the story of the morning's play is easily told - Azharuddin was at his best. And at his best, as he has proved time and again, there is no bowling attack in the world that can contain him.

The Azharuddin of yesterday was calm, commanding, playing an innings of controlled aggression, curbing his attacking instinct and looking for occupation of the crease even as he got the runs. Today, however, he was in no mood for the niceties of defence - the Azharuddin who came out and began with a four of the third ball he faced in the morning was the Azharuddin of Calcutta: ruthless, devastating, imperious, unstoppable.

Cronje tried his pacemen - Azhar drove them through covers and midoff with blinding savagery. Cronje tried the spinners - Azhar pulled, cut and lifted them out of the attack. In desperation, the South African skipper brought himself on, relying on his ability to keep the ball on the stumps, up to the bat and reverse-swinging from outside off, to stem the flow of runs.

One stroke typefied Azhar's response - drawing right back onto the stumps, Azhar let the ball pitch, then bounce, and played what can only be called a straight hook. The stroke, like the hook, was played horizontally, with the flat bat. And the ball nearly decapitated the bowler and landed first bounce on the sightscreen.

There was a method to all this - Azhar was obviously ensuring that no single bowler, or combination, managed to settle into a defensive line of attack. And he did this by mapping the field placings and then using the gaps with systematic savagery.

Meanwhile, spare a thought for Rahul Dravid. Batting at the incredibly low number of seven, Dravid came in at a difficult time, when India were 5/192, Tendulkar had departed, and the game could have gone either way. First, he weathered the threat of a collapse. Then, he began finding the singles and letting Azhar have his head against the bowling. And this morning, he continued in his calm, collected fashion - taking the singles with impeccable placements, rotating the strike and, whenever the bowlers bowled the wrong line, punishing them ruthlessly.

Robin Jackman, commenting on ESPN, pointed out something a lot of us felt - if Azhar was the don, then Dravid was the ideal consiglierie, executing the imperial will to perfection. And interestingly enough, on a day when Azhar blazed forth with an incredible array of aggressive strokes, the shot of the morning was when Dravid, up on his toes, played the classic on drive that he and Mark Waugh alone play to perfection in international cricket.

All of which does bring up one question - how come the South African attack suddenly lost its teeth? What happened to the Lance KLusener who was devastating in Calcutta? Or the Paul Adams who spun the Indians out in the first innings here?

The simple answer - which, when I tried mentioning it earlier, earned me a fair share of hate mail - is that on both occasions, the bowlers owed a bulk of their successes to bad thinking, and worse batting, by the Indians. Sure, both bowled well - but in Calcutta, no batsman save Azhar tried to combat Klusener's pace by moving onto the front foot and here, no batsman tried to play Adams with the vertical bat and the stroke played to the pitch of the ball.

This time, the batsmen got their thinking right - and the result was up there on the board - 136 runs in 120 minutes before lunch, for the loss of Dravid, caught off the outer edge while trying to glide Adams to third man, and Joshi who, after hitting four fours two each off Adams and Symcox, perished when he missed his drive and Adams knocked his off stump back.

India went in to lunch at 400 for seven - and declared at that score, setting South Africa a target of 461 to win.

Yesterday, I had in my analysis suggested that an hour before tea would be the ideal declaration time, and that 450 would be a good total to declare at. If the declaration came earlier, then so did the expected target - after all, no one could have bargained for the blitz launched by Azhar this morning.

But what is more interesting is the psychological ploy behind the declaration - if it had come say at tea, the target-to-time ratio was obviously impossible for South Africa to attain, and therefore the batting side would be left only with the option of going for the draw.

Here, the declaration came as a flat out challenge - there was all of four hours today, and a further eight hours tomorrow, to get to the total, and India with 400 in 126 overs had already proved that the runs were there for the taking on this track.

So Tendulkar's declaration was eminently sporting - and the danger was that if South Africa succumbed from that stage, then India would not only win the game (without, mind you, the stigma of doctored wickets) but also would go into the second leg of the series, in South Africa, holding the psychological edge.

Yesterday, we had made the point that when South Africa batted last, Srinath and Prasad would prove the dangermen. And today, it was the two fast bowlers who, producing a devastating exhibition of pace, swing and seam, knocked the South African challenge out before it had started.

The Kirsten versus Srinath battle, now three Tests old, promises to continue when the Indians land in South Africa. But on the day, the Indian quick took the honours - time and again beating the left handed opener with deliveries swinging in, then slanting away, Srinath produced the classic fast bowler's dismissal when he suddenly made one dart back in to the left hander off the seam. Kirsten totally misjudged the direction the ball was going to move, and though he appeared to disagree with the LBW verdict, slow motion replays clearly showed that umpire David Shepherd, impeccable through this game, had maintained his clean record with another perfect judgement.

Shepherd and Srinath were back in action a ball later, when the Indian pace bowler produced the ball of the match to newcomer Herschelle Gibbs. Bowled at his very fastest - and that, for Srinath, is really fast - Srinath pitched it on the off and middle stump, made the ball lift and seam away from the batsman, and zipped the ball through the gate between pad and bat. There was a sound, a deviation, the Indians appealed for caught behind, and Shepherd turned it down. It took two different angles on the slo-mo to confirm that the top of the pad, and not the bat, had caused the deviation, and Shepherd once again came good with a brilliant judgement.

Srinath then produced three more superb deliveries, and at the end of the over, Gibbs had faced four, and been badly beaten all four times. From then on, it was a matter of time - and Prasad, who has in this series matured as the ideal foil for his state-mate, ensured that not too much time was wasted when he duplicated Srinath's first ball to Gibbs. The ball pitched on middle, seamed away from the right hander and Gibbs, who till then had found Prasad moving the ball in, played for the wrong line and lost his offstump as the ball slid between bat and pad. Srinath with his greater pace had got the ball to lift over the stumps, Prasad's slower pace ensured that the ball clipped the top of off, and that was the only difference between the first ball Gibbs received in the innings, and the last.

Cullinan's wicket is credited, in the records, as a run out - but natural justice would be to give the credit to Srinath. Bowling with extreme pace, making the ball swing back in reverse fashion and then dart off the seam, Srinath kept Cullinan - arguably South Africa's best strokeplayer - so badly off balance that he when he finally middled one to mid off, the batsman set off for the run as if his life depended on getting to the other end and away from the bowling. There was no reason whatsoever for attempting a run that would have been suicidal even in a one-day situation off the last of the allotted overs - Cullinan's attempting it here could only be put down to pure panic. Sachin fielded, threw down the stumps, and the batsman was a good two yards out of his ground and South Africa, on 29/3, were well and truly up the creek.

In came skipper Cronje - obviously determined to do an Azhar and hit the Indian spinners off length and line. Good idea, wrong execution - for Cronje persistently used the sweep, going down on his knee at times before the ball was even delivered. True, in one over of Joshi he hit the spinner for four successive fours - thrice off the sweep - and in the process got to his 50 off just 95 balls with eight fours. But spinners love it when a batsman plays the wrong stroke, even if they give away runs - because each time the mistake is made, the chances of getting the wicket are multiplied. Cronje's ploy was to force Joshi to change his line of attack, and the spinner did precisely that, bowling one on off stump. Cronje launched into the drive, found too late that the ball had been held back, got the bottom edge of the bat on it, and Tendulkar took the regulation catch at cover.

Andrew Hudson had, all along, been playing the kind of innings that was required from his colleagues. Watchful, playing the spin at the pitch, taking runs off the loose ball and keeping the good one out of the wicket, Hudson had survived for 146 deliveries - and it took Kumble to get rid of him. The leggie, overshadowed in this innings by the pace and fire of Prasad and Srinath, produced one that kicked up at Hudson, hurried into him, took the splice and gave V V S Laxman, subbing for Ganguly at short square, a regulation catch.

The most interesting thing, for me, was to see Brian McMillan sweep at Joshi the first ball he got. And then Dave Richardson put the ball up in the air off a similar stroke, again first ball. I mean, time after time in this series, South African batsmen have perished to the cross bat stroke - makes you wonder whether they don't learn from their errors.

At the end of the day, South Africa were 127/5 - and minus any act of god, only formalities remain.

And the most interesting thing about this particular display by the Indians is this - though the presumption was that India would need a loaded turner to force a win, it appears to be coming courtesy the quicks. And that is a thought to keep in mind when we, through force of habit, talk about how the South African quicks will get after the Indian batting on the second leg of this six-Test face-off - because, perhaps for the first time in recent Indian history, India has begun to fight fire with pace even more fiery.

Interesting, that...

Scoreboard: