India vs South Africa - 1st Test Review

India did not lose to South Africa. India lost to weather and India lost to the toss. It was a very bad toss to lose. Give seaming conditions gift wrapped to Steyn and Morkel, and they will run through any damn side in the world. Bring out the sun on a hard, flat deck with the other team barely scoring 100, and any team will have their confidence sky high and will score 500+ in a test innings. There was nothing special in the victory in Supersport park and Dhoni & Co. should not be worried about it at all.

The first innings was a disaster for India, only because they lost the toss. A seaming ball on off stump and moving away by almost 6 inches got Sehwag early. Gambhir resisted a working over from Morkel, and perished soon to the setup, so did Dravid. Laxman fell to pace and Raina to foolishness. Sachin’s was a sparkling innings, unfortunately did not last long and lost his wicket to raw pace, and the rest completed the formality.  A score of 136 was still 52 more than SA got against much lesser bowlers in a similar situation 4 years ago.

The sun came out the next day and compounded to Indian problems. Graeme Smith and Alviro Petersen played without any issues and the first wicket came down by only 26^th over. All the seamers were pretty ineffective with sun outside and a small innings score inside. No Zaheer Khan was present to boost the Indian attack, something Dhoni expected Sreesanth or Ishant to do. Unadkat was nervous and was bowling wide of off stump one too many times easily to be milked by the South Africans.  And when the openers were gone, Indians woes were compounded when they faced Kallis and Amla. There is nothing to be told what went on for the rest of the day. After Amla got out, DeVilliers came out with an intent to score as fast as possible which he did effectively against a depleted and demoralized attack and when SA declared, India were staring at a huge lead of 484.

And then the test match started. Sehwag and Gambhir, their back against the walls, came out and played like they play. Sehwag was going along nicely when he threw away his wicket to Paul Harris of all people, slicing a ball down Graeme Smith’s throat. Gambhir was very very unlucky as the ball remained low and was given out lbw. Ishant Sharma played the role of nightwatchman to perfection and stood with Dravid for 16 overs before he was the first wicket to go down in the morning. Even then a draw looked very much possible with rain on the cards every now and then. And that is where India threw it away. Five and a half sessions were to be played. Four could have been distributed between the three biggies and  the rest could have been taken care by the Dhoni, Raina, Harbhajan and Co. Yes, I know it looks good only on paper, but it is as good a plan as any, and No I do not blame Dhoni or anyone else in the team for failing to implement it. But they could have avoided getting out to cheap balls. Laxman’s wicket showed how poorly he negotiated the seamers, and Raina was taken out again by the SA machinery before he could do anything.

The post lunch session arrived and the new ball was taken. Dhoni and Tendulkar did not back down and blocked everything. They played extremely positive cricket in one of the best sessions of the match, and scored at a brilliant pace. In fact, it was Dhoni who took the lead and tonked the ball around. Sachin was calm in his approach, and steadily kept milking runs off the Proteas. The 50^th ton was special and many congratulations to Sir Sachin for achieving that. I would have loved to see the hundred scored by Dhoni also as that carried more weight in the situation. He got out to a brute of a delivery by Steyn and Harbhajan could not take the pressure.

I salute Sachin and Dhoni for the bold step they took on the fifth morning. There was no point shielding Sreesanth and Unadkat from the pace battery. They would have lost the match anyways, and making SA bat for the second time for 20-25 runs would have solved no purpose. They had shown enough heart and application on the fourth day of the match and now it was time to show even more. If they were shielded that morning, they would forever be forsaken and written off by everyone including the team itself. Instead, by exposing them, Sachin and Dhoni told them, they can bat against anyone and can save a test match. The result did not matter then. It was very important for them to play like any normal day, and be able to believe that they are no less a batsman that anyone else. It will do a world of good to the team in the coming matches. Smith was farcical when said that Sachin made his day easy. He knew very well what he was trying to do and the only way to negate that was a volley of words, trying to bring down someone like Sachin. Mr. Smith, better men and countries have tried that and everyone knows what happened to them. Good Luck.