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A good bowling performance in the first session, and another premature close of play in the last, were the only two items of good news the Indians were to have all day in second Test against South Africa in Durban on Friday.
In between, a South African resurgence led by Shaun Pollock saw the home team coast to 265/8 before declaring; India needed 354 runs to win; South Africa had a total possible of 138 overs to bowl the opposition out.
The home team managed just 13 overs; in that time, they prised out two wickets: Virender Sewhag, to his own peculiar demons; Rahul Dravid, to his continued ill favor in the eyes of the umpires. And at close, Sachin Tendulkar and Wasim Jaffar were looking up at a massive mountain of 316 runs still needed, or a maximum possible 90 overs to bat out tomorrow to force a draw.
Morning session:
The joys of Test cricket -- the ebbs, the flows, the completely unexpected twists to the tale -- were on full display on the morning of the fourth day of the second Test in Kingsmead.
South Africa came out bristling with intent; Graeme Smith led the way, fluidly working Zaheer Khan off his hips for the first boundary of the morning, soon after Sreesanth had finished his over from last evening.
From then on, runs came thick and fast. AB de Villiers edged first Sreesanth, then Zaheer, through the slip cordon for fours, then showed he could play more conventionally with a flowing drive through the covers also off Zaheer. Smith, meanwhile, was particularly severe on the short stuff, cutting and pulling fiercely as he batted himself back into ominous touch.
It seemed at the time that the Indian bowlers were rapidly losing the plot. Perfectly placed deliveries continued to turn both batsmen inside out, but interspersed with those were gimme balls that released the pressure and allowed the score to mount, worryingly through boundaries.
With the sun out and the helpful overcast gone AWOL, it appeared increasingly as though the home side had taken a winning grip on the game. Wickets were intact, runs were flowing smoothly without overt effort, and a platform was being erected for a possible frenzy post-lunch.
And then, the game swung on its axis. In the 29th over of the innings, de Villiers elegantly upper cut VRV Singh's bouncer over the slip cordon for a four. Two deliveries later, a length ball on off held its line long enough to get the batsman pushing at it, then moved just enough off the seam to find the edge. Laxman, at slip, lunged forward and low to hold a superb catch (48/100; 99/1; SA one run shy of what could have been the first ever century partnership of this tour, by either side).
The dismissal also produced a glimpse into how modern cricket is played: de Villiers glanced at Laxman, the fielder smiled and nodded to indicate he had taken it clean, and the batsman started to walk. Smith stopped him in his tracks; the batsman then waited while the umpires went upstairs to confirm the catch was clean.
From then on, the action became frenzied. Sreesanth began the 30th over with a short ball that Smith pulled ferociously to bring up his 50 (77 balls, 9 fours); he celebrated by cutting the next ball, short and wide of his off-stump, with immense power.
A ball later, the bowler appeared to lose his confidence, as he indicated by losing his run up. He walked very slowly back to his mark; he took the devil's own time to work his way through a cornucopia of lucky charms, spoke to himself at the sort of length that would have given Hamlet a complex (Just chill, Sree, Allan Donald had told him before play began this morning), then ran in and beat Hashim Amla with a delivery on fullish length that bent in to beat the push and rap the pads. Asad Rauf gave it to the bowler -- a borderline decision, though Hawkeye subsequently indicated the ball would have clipped the outside of leg stump (0/4; SA 108/2).
Sree's next over was, if anything, even more dramatic. The first ball was a rank long hop that Smith pulled fluidly to the fence. The follow up was short and wide of off, and the Proteas captain took toll, cracking it off the front foot through the covers. Again, Sree paused at the top of his mark, spoke a mouthful, raced in, and produced a beauty -- angling across, hitting line of off, then straightening to go through Smith's attempted flick and disrupt the stumps ((59/81; 11 fours, 121/3).
The last ball of the over was even better. Again, it was angling across the left hander, in this case Ashwell Prince; again, it hit the line just around off, but this time it seamed the other way -- and Prince's edge went straight into Sourav Ganguly's midriff at first slip (0/4; 121/4).
After 28.3 overs in its second innings, South Africa was sitting pretty on 98/0 -- 186 runs ahead, all wickets in hand, and poised for a push that would have knocked India out of the game. 28 deliveries later, four wickets had gone down for 23 runs, and India was right back in it.
It is rare, especially in a second innings, for Anil Kumble to wait 36 overs before getting his first bowl; the leg spinner made up for the inaction with a wicket off his second delivery. Herschelle Gibbs, as he is only too prone too, lost his focus here: the ball was a touch slower, looped higher and hit off, turning fractionally away from just back of length. Gibbs came forward and drove at it, with bat a long way in front of his body; all he managed was to scoop it straight to the short cover placed just for that uppish drive (9/24; 5/140).
At the other end, Zaheer Khan had come in for a second spell and began with a testing over. His second, the 38th, produced the wicket he has been looking for all innings: the ball swung in, straightened and hit line of middle, and pinned Mark Boucher as the batsman tried to flick (8/14; SA 143/6). Those two strikes were crucial -- of the Proteas batsmen left, Gibbs and Boucher were the ones who, given a bit of breathing space, could have launched a potentially match-winning assault.
Suddenly, it was India that was buzzing with possibility; Kumble began bowling quicker and fuller, the close cordon's appeals became increasingly shriller, and Shaun Pollock and Andrew Hall were forced on the defensive. The way they played, with an overt emphasis on dour defense, clearly indicated that from looking for time to bowl India out, the home team was reduced to having to play out time, and not allow itself to be run over. One of those little info-blurbs on screen pointed out that in 2002, Andrew Hall was car-jacked, with a gun to his head, for 45 minutes. For a while there, he must have felt that was better than having a bunch of chirping Indian fielders yelling and doing their nut after every Kumble delivery.
Perversely, however, all that free-flowing adrenalin worked against the Indians. First Zaheer, then VRV Singh, lost their way, either overpitching or going too short and allowing the Proteas bats to relieve pressure with some well struck fours Singh conceded 15 in one over, the 46th, in the process undoing Kumble's miserly work. This tendency to relax before a job is fully done is a perennial bane of the way we play our cricket; at one point, the sight of Zaheer Khan merrily signing autographs even as Kumble was into his delivery stride prompted skipper Rahul Dravid to pull his seamer up quite sharply.
Given the sudden, untimely prodigality of two of his seamers and the exhaustion of Sreesanth, Dravid was forced to try Virender Sehwag's off spin, as foil to Kumble; the ex-vice captain began with a maiden; at the other end, Pollock survived a very close shout against Kumble, with Ian Howell giving the batsman benefit of nebulous doubt (Pollock 14/48; SA 176/6 at the time). In Sehwag's next over, Hall's attempt to take a short single saw Tendulkar, at mid off, over-run the ball in his eagerness, and miss a relatively simple run out chance. (While on fielding, someone needs to talk VRV Singh out of his habit of trying to stop the ball on the boundary line with his foot -- or, alternately, hire him a football coach; a Pollock four off Kumble was the second time this innings Singh's footballing skills have let him down, and eight runs leaked in the field in two tries is a bit tough on your mates).
31.3 overs in the extended session this morning produced 126 runs for the loss of six wickets; SA went in on 190/6, leading India overall by 280 runs with four wickets in hand.
On balance, you had to say that India, after two days on the receiving end, won its first session of play; the pity of it is that the bowlers took their foot off the pedal a touch too soon, and have allowed SA to crawl back through the gate with an unbroken 49 run partnership for the 7th wicket.
For South Africa, every extra run is vital; vital, too, is the need to eat up a few more overs, so the overs-to-runs equation when India begins its fourth innings is not too much in favor of the visiting side. From an Indian point of view, 280 to chase in the last innings will mean the team will have to punch above its traditional weight; typically, it has tended to lose its nerve when confronting such situations. Allow the Proteas to score much more -- 50 more, say, after lunch -- and India will find itself right back behind the eight ball, in the fourth innings.
Post lunch session:
On balance, you would likely say that India did very well to come back after being 88 behind in the first innings, and with the home team 98 for nought in the second.
And like most things, there is a grain of truth there -- it was unrealistic to expect South Africa to keep collapsing with the bat; there had to be a good comeback, at some point. No surprise, then, that it came; what was surprising, even to an extent heartwarming, is that the bowling side didn't buckle, but pegged away and when opportunity afforded, seized it to climb back into the contest.
Against that, it needs mentioning that the bowlers, well though they did to take out wickets in a heap, were guilty of forgetting the lessons learnt in the first Test. The decimation of the Proteas line-up in the two innings at Johannesburg was on the back of unlooked-for discipline. All bowlers eschewed flash; they sussed out early the lines and lengths that worked, then persisted without yielding the temptation to go fancy.
That lesson was forgotten here, especially after the string of breakthroughs, when the bowling needed to be at its most disciplined. While all the wickets came to the full length and late movement, all three Indian seamers repeatedly erred in dropping too short, too often. Adrenalin can explain it, but not excuse it; the upshot was way too many four balls gift wrapped for the opposition, not only during the first wicket partnership but throughout the innings.
Such profligacy ensured that despite the loss of wickets, South Africa was under little pressure in its quest to add heft to the lead. Home team coach Mickey Arthur said at the end of day three: "Yesterday afternoon, it was very hot and we knew that we had to hit the right areas and not let them get away. We always say that bringing the scoring rate down equals pressure equals wickets, and we did that. Sometimes, it doesn't happen right then, but Mother Cricket always pays you back."
The converse is equally true; runs equals lack of pressure, and that was shown in the way South Africa progressed from the Siberia of 143/6 in 37.5 overs, to 265/8 in 67.5 overs, adding 122 runs in the space of 30 overs. All told, India's bowlers bled 38 fours; 7 wides and 12 no balls were equally a testimony to the waywardness of the bowlers.
The prodigality continued, in pronounced fashion, after lunch. While Anil Kumble built pressure at one end with his usual parsimony, first Sreesanth, then Zaheer, gave away four balls at the other with errors in line and length (most errors being on the short side) that Shaun Pollock, in particular, was quick to jump on. 21 runs came off 4.4 overs after lunch, before Sreesanth struck to get rid of Andrew Hall. The delivery was full, on leg and middle; Hall attempted to flick across the line, missed, and was dismissed by Asad Rauf who ruled (correctly, Hawkeye then confirmed) that the ball would have hit leg (21/52; SA 213/7. The 70-run partnership for the 7th wicket had brought South Africa right back into the contest, just when it looked as if India would script a stunning turnaround.
Morne Morkel's good shape with the bat was mentioned in these columns in the first innings; here, he did his part to perfection, playing along clean lines and holding his end together while Pollock rocked on. The veteran all-rounder brought up his 50 (89 balls, 8 fours); the huge cheers that went up around the ground bore testimony to a knock without price, with Pollock coming in when his team was in dire straits, and playing a superbly calculated hand to turn the game back around on its axis.
Once he was past his 50 and South Africa past the 250-mark, Pollock figured his team had reached the safety zone, and promptly cut loose; deft flicks, savage cuts and pulls began peppering the boundaries. Morkel too chipped in, finessing Zaheer to third man (he was to do the same, even better, to Kumble a while later), then going down on one knee to swing Kumble to midwicket.
India visibly wilted; the gains of the morning session leaked while you watched.
Dravid, in desperation, turned to Virender Sehwag -- and the move ended the innings. Morkel looked to clear long off, failed to get under the flattish delivery, and holed out to the man on the boundary line (27/41; SA 265/8) and Graeme Smith, feeling perhaps the wind filling his sails, declared with Pollock unbeaten on 63/99, setting India 354 runs to force a win. More realistically, Smith had given his bowlers sufficient time -- even if the now-usual early close comes into play -- to bowl the opposition out. A maximum of 138 overs remained to be bowled at that point, though a more realistic estimate would be between 90-100 overs.
The only time in recent memory that India has played out that many overs in the fourth innings to force a draw was, curiously enough, against South Africa: at Port Elizabeth in the 2001 series, India batted 96.2 overs, for a total of 206/3, to take the game into stalemate. Several members of the current side should remember that game: Dravid, Tendulkar, Ganguly, Sehwag, Laxman and Kumble played in that squad.
The most noticeable part of Virender Sehwag's batting during this form slump has been the visible reduction in bat speed; damned if I know why. The consequence has been that often, the bat meets the ball later than optimum; that was been the case early in his innings here, with his scoring shots being squirts off the thick edge, including a lone four, when he looked to play to midwicket and got it past third slip. Such dumb luck doesn't get you too far, though; in this case, one ball after the four, Ntini bowled the same line and the same length, Sehwag pushed, the bat again was awfully late in meeting the ball and this time, the outer edge settled in Smith's lap at first slip (8/11; India 14/1 in 3.6 overs).
The lights came on, Rahul Dravid came out, and both he and Wasim Jaffar held their nerve, kept their bats out of harm's way, and saw India through to 18/1 in 8 overs at tea.
The real action begins after the break; ahead of the Indians lies an incredible amount of hard work; the only gameplan in sight is to play it one session at a time. The one just ended, meanwhile, clearly belonged to South Africa, reasserting the ascendancy they had gained from the morning of day two, and relinquished only momentarily in the first session this morning.
Post-tea session:
A problem with past Indian sides confronted with fourth innings challenges has been a propensity to sit on the splice; to defend like it was Dunkirk, until the waves washed over them and they sank in their own fears.
Rather unusually, this time round, Dravid and Jaffer looked positive after the break. Dravid flicked a four off a Ntini lifter; Jaffer at the other end started by uppercutting the first ball of the Andre Nel over to the backward point fence for four; a ball later, he went back and square drove the bowler past Gibbs at point, then rounded things off by flicking the bowler to the midwicket region for three more.
An interesting facet was that unlike in the first innings, the South African bowlers took to bowling full lengths, looking for the breakthrough rather than focussing on the run-restricting shorter length.
The wicket came -- unfortunately, through another of those umpiring errors. Ntini went wide of the crease and speared one in through the channel. Dravid, driving with bat a long way forward, was clearly beaten -- but as clearly, he was not out. The bat hit pad first and turned, the ball then sang past the outer edge; Asad Rauf picked up the noise and raised the finger and the Indian captain walked away with rare self-control for one bummed out twice in a Test. (34/1).
Graeme Smith brought Pollock on as early as the 11th over of the innings; Jaffer flicked the bowler off his pads when Pollock bowled the full length looking for an lbw. A ball later, out came the light meters and off went the players -- the Indians with alacrity, the South Africans dragging their feet, with many longing looks out at the middle and up at the skies.
Bottomline, India is 316 runs shy of the target; there are another 36 overs to be bowled today, but my best guess is you can forget about them.
That brings up tomorrow, with a possible 90 overs of play -- or, more realistically, between 60-70 overs. That is still the heck of an ask, but the tendency of light to go in the final session has given the batting side a silver lining. Now to see what they make of it.