S'African tail wags in the face of Indian spinners
Prem Panicker
Let's hit the high spots, first - India, resuming on day two of the first Test at the overnight score of 215 for eight, lasted a mere half hour before being all out for 223, pace twins Allan Donald and Fanie De Villiers taking out the remaining two wickets with little fuss and less bother.
At close of play, South Africa - reeling at one stage on 119/7 - were 202 for eight, just 21 short of India's first innings total with two wickets intact.
And sandwiched in between those two capsule paras is a tale of needless apprehension, thoughtless batting and incompetent umpiring, climaxed by a brilliant fightback - all of which, cumulatively, underline why Test cricket with its crescendoes and its diminuendoes, its sway and swing of fortunes, is rated by connoisseurs way ahead of the one day variety of the game.
The story of the first half hour's play is easily told - Allan Donald, bowling with the second new ball just 12-odd overs old, was just too good for the Indian tail. Kumble was the danger man, as he had on the evening of the first day displayed both the technical competence, and the will to stay, that could have posed problems for South Africa. And it was Kumble that Donald removed, producing a lifter angling into his body which the hapless batsman had no option but to jab down into the hands of Gary Kirsten at forward short leg. A classical fast bowler's dismissal to round off a classical display of genuine fast bowling.
And Kumble's response was to produce a classic spinner's dismissal, to begin the South African slide. Once Srinath and Prasad, bowling superbly but unsuccessfully, had taken the shine off, the ace leggie came on and straightaway, induced the prolific Kirsten to edge the ball just wide of the diving hands of forward short leg. The next ball found another edge, this one dropping just wide of silly point. The third ball zipped through so fast the batsman hardly had time to lift his bat before it was through him. Under pressure, Kirsten tried to dance down and hit Kumble out of the ground - the leg spinner spotted the move, riposted by firing one through at a pace Allan Donald would have envied and Mongia, unsighted by the advancing Kirsten, did superbly to collect and whip the bails off.
Kumble has made a habit of producing the flipper - bowled at top pace and whizzing through straight - to trap unwary batsmen LBW as they play for non-existent turn. And it was a flipper that did Andrew Hudson - the first of five LBW decisions, on at least two of which the benefit of doubt could have legitimately gone in favour of the batsman.
While number three Darryl Cullinan relied on front foot play, the other frontline South African batsmen came to the crease apparently labouring under the apprehension that the pitch was a minefield, and the red object that Messers Kumble, Hirwani and Joshi kept hurling at them were hand grenades liable to blow up in their faces.
First Cronje, then Jonty Rhodes, then McMillan albeit to a lesser extent, and Dave Richardson, all adopted the ploy of hopping right back, to within an inch of the stumps, and playing as late as they could.
Any coach worth the name will tell you that even on the toughest of sticky wickets, that is precisely the way not to play spin. The prescribed technique is to go onto the front foot to anything tossed up - and all three spinners kept the ball right up through the day - and smother the turn at the half volley stage, pad and bat close together. And if the ball is short, to go right back, wait for the turn and then play the forcing stroke on off or leg depending on the line of delivery.
Among the top seven batsmen, Cullinan alone employed the right technique - and he alone got runs, 43 off them inclusive of four fours and one six before making the cardinal error he had avoided till then, of going right onto the back foot to a ball of full length from Joshi. This was the ball that straightened with the arm - and Cullinan became one of the five caught with their leg before the wicket.
Skipper Cronje was another - and he was one of two SA batsmen, the other being Hudson, who have reason to be unhappy with the umpiring. In both cases, there was doubt about whether or no the ball would hit the stumps. And by convention, such doubt benefits the batsmen. However, umpire Bansal in one instance, umpire Sharp in the other, blotted their copybook by overruling both the doubt and the convention.
At this stage, perhaps, it is apt to digress to the question of umpiring. And the first question that occurs is, was this home team bias?
The answer, I suggest, is no. Two Indian batsmen suffered when the home side batted, and now it was the turn of two South Africa batsmen to suffer the same fate - and all four dodgy decisions were LBW.
Meaning? Simply this - that Messers Sharp and Bansal,who had just over a week ago presided over five LBW decisions in Sharjah when Pakistan and New Zealand played the final of the Challengers' Trophy and got four of them wrong - are, quite simply, incompetent.
Harsh judgement? Perhaps. But then, what else can you say of two people who, in one one-day game and over two days of a Test match, give 13 batsmen out LBW, and get 8 - count them, eight - of those decisions wrong?
This, again, raises a pertinent question: can cricket authorities afford, in these days when the slo-mo and stump-cam technology harshly highlights errors and incompetence, afford to have match results vitiated, and reputations tarnished, simply because of an inability or unwillingness to enforce the strictest standards of umpiring?
Can the game afford this disrepute?
Back, meanwhile, to the game. If South Africa found itself spun out of the game at 119/7, then the fault lay at least as much with the batsmen, who as mentioned before appeared to play apprehended danger more than actual fact, playing in other words for a devil that did not exist in reality. Irrespective of whether it is a well-grassed seamer's wicket or a hard, dry spinner's track, batsmen of quality play the ball on its intrinsic merit, not on the basis of what they assume it will do. This the South African batsmen failed to do, and for this they paid dearly - with, it must again be added, the umpires raising the ante still further.
Had matters turned out differently, had the S'African tail collapsed as the head and body did, then there would have been talk of tailored spinners' tracks, of minefields and such.
But ironically, it was the South Africans themselves - in particular, Pat Symcox and Fanie De Villiers - who nipped such suggestions in the bud.
And the two, who put together a partnership of 63 for the ninth wicket, did this by displaying the technique the earlier batsmen forgot. Rarely, if ever, did either of them play the spinners off the back foot. Rarely did they lift bat out of the way and pad up with calculated deliberation (Incidentally, this was what Cronje did - there was no doubt that the ball that took him on the back pad was going to hit off and middle, the SA skipper however calculated that the ball was pitching marginally outside leg stump and therefore he could not be out LBW, and deliberately padded up; his dismissal owed to the fact that the umpire read the line as landing on leg stump).
Instead, the two batsmen came well forward to each ball, unless it was short enough to go back to. Each ball was played with bat, not pad. Always, the intention was to take the single and keep rotating strike so that no spinner could bowl steadily at one or the other batsman. And always, any ball that erred even a fraction in length and line was mercilessly hit.
Elementary virtues, these - and the fact that a bowler and a pinch-hitter harnessed these to put up the highest partnership not just of the innings but of the match so far underlines how far wrong the more recognised, indeed famed, batsmen of both sides had been earlier.
What, meanwhile, of the bowling? Srinath, as per usual, was outstanding - and, in the process, he joined Donald in proving that the Ahmedabad track was not the grave of a genuine quick bowler. True, Srinath did not get any wickets - but in 12 overs, six of which were maidens, Srinath troubled every single batsman to face him with lift, pace and movement. And, in the process underlined that a truly good bowler operating at his best is almost unplayable on any surface.
Anil Kumble was, well, Anil Kumble. Fast through the air, zippy off the wicket, compensating for lack of real turn with sufficient variety. And using his flipper as his main strike weapon, and bowling it so well that throughout his 28 overs, not one batsman managed to spot it, leave alone play it with any conviction.
Hirwani began well - but though he did get two wickets, his performance on the day, on the track, and against apprehensive batsmen, failed to really impress. Too often did flight turn into full tosses, too often did the line swing wildly between outside off to outside leg, to be impressive.
And then there was Joshi. A bowler who, in the past, has suffered because he was never given long spells in which to work on the batsmen. And the importance of this he proved with one delivery of scintillant brilliance.
McMillan had, all along, been playing the spinners with conviction and perfect footwork. In came Joshi. The first ball was on a length, and big Mac was forward in defense. Ball two was on a length again, but a shade more towards middle and leg - and again, the immaculate defense. Ball three was identical, and similarly treated, as ball two. And then that infinitesimal change - ball four was just a shade, a micron, more to the leg stump line. And just a micron fuller in length. McMillan didn't spot the subtle variation, he came forward in defense, the fuller length saw the ball land not in front of his bat but to the side of it, and the slight drift meant the ball squeezed through the batsman's front and back pads and crashed into middle stump.
Great spinners - the likes of Benaud, Laker and Bedi - were in their time famed for such dismissals. And today, Joshi produced a similar one for the archives. And by finally breaking the hoodoo of being the best bowler on view for the least success, he added immeasurably to his own confidence, and more to the point the confidence his captain will now have in him.
As stumps were drawn, the Indians walked off - then held back just before the gates, and allowed the undefeated Fanie De Villiers, batting on a superb 40 off 93 balls, to walk ahead of them. And never was a gesture more truly deserved - Fanie, on the day, walked out a hero.
All of which is prelude to a most interesting third day's play. For irrespective of how much longer the S'African first innings continues, the onus is now on the home side.
On the one hand, it has to put together a 275-300 run target on the board to give itself a chance to pressure the tourists and try and bowl them out. This means looking for runs at a reasonably rapid pace. And on the other hand, the smallest slip could mean a collapse, a low second innings total and, given that the Proteas never, ever, go down without a fight, the possibility that in the second innings, even against the Indian spinners, the visitors will bat with more application and go past the target.
Be interesting to see how Sachin Tendulkar and his men do that little trapeze act.
Scoreboard:
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 c Kirsten b Donald 17 54 3 0
BKV Prasad c Donald b de Villiers 9 37 0 0
ND Hirwani not out 0 3 0 0
Extras (lb 9, nb 3) 12
Total (all out, 98.5 overs) 223
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), 9-221 (Prasad),
10-223 (Kumble).
Bowling O M R W
Donald 26.5 13 37 4
de Villiers 18 5 55 2
BM McMillan 11 4 20 0
Cronje 5 3 8 0
Adams 17 2 46 1
Symcox 21 5 48 2
South Africa 1st innings R B 4 6
AC Hudson lbw b Kumble 23 80 3 0
G Kirsten st Mongia b Kumble 17 47 2 0
DJ Cullinan lbw b Joshi 43 75 4 1
WC Cronje lbw b Hirwani 1 8 0 0
JN Rhodes c Manjrekar b Joshi 14 38 0 0
BM McMillan b Joshi 8 23 0 0
DJ Richardson b Hirwani 4 29 0 0
PL Symcox lbw b Joshi 32 80 1 1
PS de Villiers not out 40 93 2 0
AA Donald not out 4 30 0 0
Extras (b 7, lb 8, nb 1) 16
Total (8 wickets, 84 overs) 202
Fall of Wickets: 1-29 (Kirsten), 2-46 (Hudson), 3-49 (Cronje),
4-95 (Rhodes), 5-102 (Cullinan), 6-113 (Richardson),
7-119 (BM McMillan), 8-182 (Symcox).
Bowling O M R W
Srinath 12 6 22 0
Prasad 7 2 17 0
Kumble 28 5 68 2
Joshi 22 3 42 4
Hirwani 15 3 38 2
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