But it wasn't as easy as the past. Dhoni won the toss in eons and invited SA to bat. Zaheer Khan quickly got his bunny and India looked on chipping wickets from time to time. It took a brilliant 161 from Kallis with the support of some tail enders to post the score of 362 when it looked at one stage SA will fold for under 300. Sreesanth took 5 wickets in the innings and Smith must have seemed pretty confident after getting that total on a slow track, only to be informed of the injury to Kallis, which ruined things for him somewhat.
Steyn was on fire as usual and Sehwag and Dravid fell early. Sachin came on and played a huge huge partnership with Gambhir which would eventually define the Indian innings of the match. They kept out the good and the very good balls by Steyn and Morkel. Their strike rate of mid-40s is a grand testimony of the grit and determination went into those innings. After Gambhir's wicket, India had a bit of a collapse, and suddenly the score went from 204-2 to 247-6 when Harbhajan Singh came on and decided to have fun. He and Sachin took the score past 300 and with the help of Zaheer Khan, India were able to overtake the home team's score of 362 , but only just.
The second innings was where all the drama began. Smith started blasting the bowlers off the park and Zaheer was probably trying too hard (or too easy) to get him this time. Zaheer wasn't at his 100% and this would prove an important setback for India later in the innings. The rough in the pitch was declared evidently and everyone was looking forward to how India would use that. Harbhajan came out and took four quick wickets on day 3 and day 4 morning. His initial figures looked 4/10, and SA were likely staring at defeat against an upbeat India. But as Harbhajan pointed out later in the press conference, the fast bowlers were not upto the mark, all sorts of tiredness and everything, and SA recovered from 130/6 to post a total of 341 - that man Kallis again standing in the way of India. He batted brilliantly with Boucher, Steyn and Morkel through pain to post 40th century of his career and virtually saved the match single handedly. Not only he saved the match, SA were actually looking to bowl India out on the fifth day and win the series.
The second Indian innings was probably the most important innings Indian batsmen had to play throughout the series. Last day pitch and 340 runs to get. Sorry. Last day pitch and 10 wickets to save. Sehwag started with the motto of not playing the good balls, which was not to be, and he fell quickly to Morkel after scoring just 11 runs. Dravid joined Gambhir. Gambhir had been in a similar situation in New Zealand not very long ago and knew exactly what had to be done, albeit this time against a very different, untiring, and hostile attack. He got into his groove, put his head down and started defending and leaving. He was so concentrated in his batting (my man of the match) that he did not speak a word to Dravid for a very long duration during the partnership. He fended off 184 balls during the day, 60 more than anyone else did. After Dravid was out, he joined hands with Sachin and kept at it. Sachin and Laxman successfully fended off the rest of the attack and the match veered into a draw. No more was the Indian team a fourth innings loser. There would be some disappointment at not bowling SA out on the fourth day when they had a chance. A little more application from Zaheer, Sreesanth and Ishant could have spun the result India's way, and this will go down in history as probably the best chance India had to win a series in SA. But never mind, the team's coming good and looks to beat any team in their own backyard today. As for a certain Darren Gough, please wait for six months, you will see the result for yourself at the comfort of your home.
For the critics, who were of the opinion that India, being No. 1 should have gone all guns at the target on the last day, go take a walk.
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