India wins the toss, and loses the advantage
Prem Panicker
In the morning, India won the toss and elected for first strike on a wicket that is expected to bring smiles to spinners' faces by the end of day three.
In the evening, when stumps were drawn, India had slumped to 215 for eight, and it was Hansie Cronje who was smiling as he led his team off the field.
Why?
Oversimplification is the bane of analysis, but it is impossible to escape the feeling that the events of the day owed to two factors - the first being incompetent umpiring, which served as the catalyst for collapse; the second was lack of thought by the senior Indian batsmen, which aggravated the problem.
And while on the subject, let's not forget a superlative bowling performance - 23 overs, 11 maidens, 33 runs, three wickets - by the inimitable Allan Donald.
So much for the capsule, now for the whole ball game...
Going to the match at the Sardar Patel Gujarat Stadium at Motera, Ahmedabad, one thing was a given - that the wicket would take turn from day one, and that the rate of deviation after pitching would only increase as the game progressed.
Reflecting this was the team composition of both India and South Africa - India going in with three spinners in Kumble, Joshi and Hirwani (the googly bowler being preferred, don't ask me why, to the off spin of Aashish Kapoor), while South Africa went in with the reliable off spin of Pat Symcox, and the 'mystery' spin of Paul Adams. A tribute, this, for Adams - for both Cronje and Woolmer preferred to risk a man who has played just one first class game in the last three months, to Nicky Boje who has bowled penetratively throughout the Titan Cup and the subsequent tour games.
And while on the subject of teams, V V S Laxman, the Hyderabad star, debuted for India on the day.
The wicket was brown, and hard, with a soft underbelly - which meant that while it would dampen the ardour of pace bowlers, it would give the spinners enough 'bite' to get turn if they were prepared to hit the deck.
Tendulkar won the toss, and smilingly took first strike. The goal, at that point in time, would have been for India to pile up something like 350 runs, or more, by tea time on day two and then see whether South Africa's batting could withstand the pressure of chasing a big score with a ring of close in fielders to a double spin attack.
Sanjay Manjrekar, opening by default thanks to injuries to Ganguly and Sidhu, looked in fine touch from ball one, stroking freely through both on and off sides. Nayan Mongia, who like the Dutch boy in the fable appears to be the one who gets to put his finger in any hole that opens up at the top of the Indian batting order, looked solid, if unspectacular. And umpire S K Bansal looked as if he imagined himself still in Sharjah - after first turning down a reasonably good appeal for LBW from Fanie De Villiers, he then compounded matters by giving the batsman out LBW off a ball that was missing the leg stump by about half a foot.
Most illuminative in the action replays was the position of the wicket keeper when the ball struck Mongia - Dave Richardson was already moving way down the leg side to collect the angling ball.
India were 22/1 at that stage. And Rahul Dravid, looking as calmly confident as per norm, and Sanjay Manjrekar, slowing down after an assured start and looking to play his eye in, took the scroe along to 63 before the latter, who had in this innings shown a fondness for the cut, tried the shot off a ball from Adams that was pitching on off stump. Rather silly, that - Manjrekar had already faced 94 balls and got his eye well set, so whyfor the shot? Manjrekar played for the ball turning away from off stump, Adams bowled the one that straightened with the arm, and the alignment of the stumps was inevitably disturbed. India, thus, 63/2 at lunch.
After the break, Sachin Tendulkar decided to demonstrate that the needs of Test cricket need be no inhibitor of strokeplay - two glorious cover drives and one square drive, all of Fanie De Villiers, were particularly outstanding as the Indian skipper raced to 42 off just 64 balls. Dravid, meanwhile, was his usual measured self, content to hold one end up while his skipper ruined the bowling analysis of the rivals. Enter Bansal, for the second time - the ball from Symcox was an off spinner, pitched on middle and leg - how Dravid could conceivably have been leg before to that delivery will remain a mystery for the ages. In the event, though, India were 98/3.
Azharuddin looked in as good touch as his skipper, and India began making the scorers work for their money around this stage. Cronje, meanwhile, compounded matters by keeping Donald - the only South African bowler on the day to look truly dangerous - off the crease after just two overs and opt for the two spinners and De Villiers, all of whom Tendulkar and Azhar treated with disrespect.
After crossing thirty, Tendulkar for some strange reason decided that he was going to hit the spinners off their line by playing across, rather than straight as he had been doing till then. A couple of narrow shaves, including an inner edge that went fine for four, didn't apparently register on the batsman's consciousness - again he drove at one from Symcox pitched on off stump, the stroke was aimed at midwicket, Jonty Rhodes took off like a spaceship and came back to earth with ball firmly in his grip. India 129/4, and after Manjrekar, it was now Tendulkar's turn to throw it away after being well set.
Thirty runs later, Azharuddin proved that he could go one better than those two - playing the ball to the left of Jonty Rhodes at point, Azhar took off for a single that was a bit of an iffy thing even in a one day context - and, in the event, failed to beat Rhodes' diving pickup and throw by about two feet. India 159/5.
At which point, Cronje remembered that he had a guy named Allan Donald patrolling the outfield, and brought him back to the crease. Donald, for his part, put all his stored up energy into a fiery spell that had Laxman, who till then had batted with circumspection and a fair measure of conviction, trapped in front with a superfast ball on a length on off stump (6/165), then struck again with the second new ball when a delivery on off stump lifted and left the bat late to take Srinath's edge and give Cullinan a simple catch at second slip (India 193/7), then repeated the delivery, with similar results, to the left handed Sunil Joshi to reduce India to 196/8.
At close, Kumble was batting with an ease that showed up his seniors' lack of application, while Prasad - the last person in the side to lay claim to batting fame - went even one better, playing 23 deliveries from Donald and De Villiers right off the middle of the bat and getting seven runs in the process.
The likes of Joshi, Srinath, Kumble and Prasad showed application. The likes of Azharuddin, Tendulkar and Manjrekar didn't. That, in sum, was the story of a day on which India, handed a whip, threw it in the trashcan.
For South Africa, the normally accurate De Villiers disappointed, bowling wide of the stumps for the most part while Brian McMillan, for his part, refused to believe there was nothing in the pitch and kept banging them in short, to little purpose except waste of energy.
Adams and Symcox got bounce and turn - but having said that, neither bowler is in the class of a Mushtaq Ahmed or a Shane Warne, and the three wickets they took between them were all gifts - two courtesy the umpires, one courtesy Sanjay Manjrekar.
Allan Donald, though, was something else. Faster than ever before on this tour, bowling with sustained hostility into an attacking field with never less than three slips, Donald showed that a fast bowler can be unplayable even on Indian wickets - provided the bowler was prepared to pitch up, and use seam movement to force the batsman to play and edge. Remember Australia in Delhi for the one-off Test? Messers McGrath, Reiffel and Fleming forgot this lesson in the Indian first innings and suffered, they re-learnt it in the second innings and gave the home side a heart attack. Same case here - Donald alone stuck to line, length and seam, and Donald alone reaped the rewards.
A word, too, for Jonty Rhodes - as outstanding a catch as you will ever see, followed by another trademark runout, indicated yet again why South Africa would rather sacrifice a fifth bowler than drop him.
When the game resumes tomorrow, India will in all probability attempt to add as many as they can to the overnight total, then allow the shine to go off the ball before going after the South African batsmen with three spinners operating in rotation. And - predictions are both unpopular, and risky, in a game as uncertain as cricket, but still - I'd predict that a certain Venkatesh Prasad might prove a bit of a handful on this track, as well.
Till then, ciao!
India 1st innings R B 4 6
SV Manjrekar b Adams 34 94 4 0
NR Mongia lbw b de Villiers 9 18 2 0
R Dravid lbw b Symcox 24 98 3 0
SR Tendulkar c Rhodes b Symcox 42 64 7 0
MA Azharuddin run out (Rhodes) 35 79 5 0
VVS Laxman lbw b Donald 11 43 1 0
SB Joshi c Hudson b Donald 16 60 1 0
J Srinath c Cullinan b Donald 14 46 1 0
A Kumble not out 13 30 2 0
BKV Prasad not out 7 23 0 0
Extras (lb 7, nb 3) 10
Total (8 wickets, 92 overs) 215
Fall of Wickets: 1-22 (Mongia), 2-63 (Manjrekar), 3-98 (Dravid),
4-129 (Tendulkar), 5-159 (Azharuddin), 6-165 (Laxman),
7-193 (Srinath), 8-196 (Joshi).
Bowling O M R W
Donald 23 11 33 3
de Villiers 15 3 53 1
BM McMillan 11 4 20 0
Cronje 5 3 8 0
Adams 17 2 46 1
Symcox 21 5 48 2
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