Test nicely poised on day three

Prem Panicker

The most startling statistic of the day's play is that South Africa were bowled out for 321 in just 89.1 overs - a cracking rate of scoring, by any standards, for a Test match.

And in those figures lies the key to understanding the day's play. The fact that runs could be scored so rapidly - and remember, there were as many as 40 fours and two sixes in there - indicates that this is a nice batting track, the ball coming on quite comfortably and aiding strokeplay.

The fact that SA made such rapid progress indicates that the Indian bowlers kept the ball right up on a length for the most part and on the stumps, unlike on the first two days when the RSA bowlers were more intent on pitching shortish and outside the line of the stumps, not making the batsmen play for the most part. Add to this the fact that almost throughout the day, except for a brief spell post tea, when Srinath and Prasad were obviously tired and Tendulkar was marking time before the second new ball could be claimed, the field was set in quite an aggressive fashion, without too much cover on the boundaries on a lightning-fast outfield.

And the fact that ten wickets fell in the day, not to mention the three catches and one stumping that should have been claimed, but were not, indicates that on this wicket, if the bowlers keep the right length and line and know their stuff, then batsmen could be got out at a fair rate.

All of which sets things up for an interesting two days, doesn't it? Given that the wicket is playing true and India, with nothing to lose, are leading by 89 going in to bat on the fourth day, the touring side can go for the bowling, look to put something like 300 on the board by say the very last hour of play, and then see if they can bowl SA out again.

SA, for its part, can see if it can bowl India out cheap - failing which, it can still chase a target on the last day.

Alternately, of course, the SA bowlers can bowl the defensive line they did the first time out, or India's batsmen can grind things out, and the game could meander into a draw.

Any of three possible results still open on day three - though, realistically speaking, the draw seems the best bet - is fair dinkum, as the Aussies would say.

And here is how it all came about...

The South African innings

Andrew Hudson and Gary Kirsten began proceedings against Srinath and Prasad, and right from the start looked in the mood to take the attack to the opposition.

Sachin Tendulkar's decision, then, to bring on Anil Kumble very early, replacing Prasad, must count as good cricketing thinking - Hudson has, during the Indian tour earlier, been in trouble against the leggie early in his innings, and here he tried to cut at the very first ball he got, outside off and turning and bouncing on him enough to take the bottom edge and give Azhar a chance to show his superb reflexes in the slips. Andrew Hudson caught Azharuddin bowled Kumble 18 off 27 with one six and one four, the wicket falling at 36.

Adam Bacher came in, and departed after three lovely drives had indicated his class, to some silly cricket. Increasingly, international umpires have tended to give the batsman out when he pads up deliberately to a ball that looks headed stumpwards, even when the ball starts its line outside off. Bacher makes something of a fetish of leaving balls dangerously close to his off stump, and occasionally padding up when the line is an inch outside off. He did it here, the ball was cutting back in sharply to strike the knee roll and up went the umpire's finger. Could the ball have been climbing and would it have missed the stumps? A possibility there, definitely, for the benefit of the doubt, but umpire Peter Willey didn't think so. In the event, Bacher presumably will think twice before doing that again. Bacher LBW Srinath 13 off 19 balls, three fours, wicket falling at 64.

Gary Kirsten has tended to be very uncomfortable outside his off stump, especially when Srinath and Prasad slant the ball across him. At times he pokes at the ball leaving the bat, and when he has one of those narrow shaves, he tends to overcompensate by leaving one alone. Prasad has in an earlier outing trapped him thus, and here the dismissal was a carbon copy - one ball leaving the bat and just missing the edge, the next ball on the same spot but coming in, Kirsten left it alone and looked back to find his off stump gone. Kirsten bowled Prasad 29 off 48 balls with five fours, wicket falling at 73.

Darryl Cullinan looked in good touch, stroking smoothly and playing a couple of blazing off drives that were worth going miles out of your way to see. And perhaps it was unfortunate for the batsman that he had to go out to a blinder of a catch, pulling powerfully from off his middle stump for Pankaj Dharmani, substituting for VVS Laxman to interrupt its rocketlike progress to the fence at square leg. Cullinan caught Dharmani bowled Srinath 33 off 46 with six fours, wicket falling at 139.

All this drama, mind you, had taken place before lunch, and Hansie Cronje till the break looked reasonably comfortable. In fact, when Prasad and Srinath tried to capitalise on the SA skipper's rather peculiar habit of taking his eye off the ball and presenting his body to lifting deliveries coming into his ribs, Cronje this time elected to stand up and pull, and looked good doing it, too.

Srinath came back from lunch looking as if someone had lit a fire under him. And what followed was perhaps the most venomous burst of pace bowling we've seen on this tour so far, from any bowler. One lifter thudded into McMillan's helmet and went through for four byes. Cronje took one on the arm, another in the ribs, a third in the stomach, missed getting the edge of his bat times out of mind, and finally put an end to his own misery by pulling at one going away from him to get the top edge and give Mongia a nice easy ballooning catch to hold round about leg slip. That dismissal was the work of a fast bowler going flat out, softening the batsman up until he decided he had had enough - and interestingly, in this spell, Srinath was getting more fire and bounce out of this wicket than any bowler had till then. Cronje caught Mongia bowled Srinath 43 off 57 with seven fours, wicket falling at 147.

147/5 was a dangerous position for the home side to be in, and it could have been worse had Mongia closed his hands around one from Shaun Pollock that Kumble bowled on leg stump, the batsman glanced, got a faint edge for the ball to pop into, and out, of the batsman's hands. Almost immediately thereafter, Dodda Ganesh found the edge as Pollock aimed a cut at him, the ball travelled head high to the right of Tendulkar in the slips, and the Indian skipper just stood frozen to the spot.

Those misses cost India dear as Pollock and McMillan put their heads down and put on a lovely display of batting. Anything that was there to be hit - and given that the bowlers were bowling a full line, there were plenty of those - was hit with power and elegance, classic cover driving from Pollock and some lovely pulling by McMillan rocketing the score along at breakneck pace. Tendulkar, finally, was forced to resort to Ganguly to stem the flow of runs with his gentle inswingers, and the bowler - as he so often does - obliged with a wicket, trapping McMillan on the pad as the batsman tried to play across the line. It was a patient, responsible innings, and interesting because in India earlier, McMillan had tended to try and hit his way out of trouble, and perished cheaply in the process. On home soil, he has been batting with maturity, and once more looking the McMillan whose batting prowess once elevated him to number three in the order. McMillan lbw Ganguly 47 off 83 with four fours, fall of wicket 6/259.

McMillan and Pollock had batted well to see SA past the follow on target of 211, first, and then build on it. Richardson came in at this stage, and frankly that should rank as rather bad captaincy on the part of Cronje. At that point, the ball was 80 overs old, soft from all the battering, Srinath and Prasad were out of action as the new ball was due shortly and they couldn't be used, which meant that someone like Klusener, coming in then, could have put the Indian attack to the sword. Also, it would have meant that Klusener would have his eye well set before the second new ball became due.

In the event, Richardson was reduced to pushing and prodding, as both Ganguly and Kumble bowled a tight, restrictive length and kept the ball bang on the stumps. In the event, the keeper-batsman tried to break the shackles by gliding Ganguly to third man, edged and Azharuddin snapped up another beauty in the slips. Richardson caught Azharuddin bowled Ganguly 13 off 46 balls with one four, fall of wicket 285/7.

Shaun Pollock had, all along, been batting with a fluency that, for the first time this tour, underlined his claim to rank among the rising stars of the all-rounder fraternity. He is a nicely balanced batsman, with strokes all round the wicket and a quick cricketing mind capable of spotting the gaps and tailoring his strokes to find them. It took a brilliant delivery from Srinath with the second new ball - bang on off stump, just short enough to have Pollock reaching forward and getting opened up, then leaving him to nick the edge en route to the keeper - to get rid of him when a maiden Test hundred looked his for the taking.

Interestingly, the edge was obvious, but umpire Cyril Mitchley looked disinterested in the appeal. To Pollock's eternal credit, he looked at the umpire, saw he had not been given out, and still walked - a gesture of sportsmanship that should have wiped out, from the minds of the Indian players, memories of his little run-ins with Rahul Dravid on day two. And that gesture alone should - in a day and age when walking is considered rank folly - deserve more applause than even the hundred which was deservedly his for the taking. Pollock caught Mongia bowled Srinath 79 off 158 delieries with 12 fours, fall of wicket 303/8

Lance Klusener makes a bit of a festish of his aggressiveness, but frankly, I for one wasn't quite taken by the savage hoiks he kept aiming at every ball irrespective of line and length. A bit more application from him, and SA should have been still batting, as we were already into over number 85, just five more to go, when Pollock got out. But no, the batsman not only insisted on hitting everything in sight, but compounded it by taking singles off even the first ball of an over, exposing Donald to the new ball. That, by any reckoning, was not good thinking and Prasad, with a straight ball held back a fraction to beat Donald's stroke, got the wicket. Donald bowled Prasad 4 off 14, FOW 318/9.

And then Klusener made it worse. Very ostentitiously, he kept batting Prasad about, then refusing the runs that were on offer for five balls of the over. In fact, off the fifth ball, Klusener played it out to the man on the point boundary, who for his part walked very slowly to pick the ball, allowing the single - but Klusener thought otherwise. Prasad, an intelligent bowler, promptly showed up the folly by pitching ball six short, slanting it wide of off stump and giving the batsman no chance to get the single, and off the very first ball of the next over, Srinath finished things off by inducing the bat-pad from Adams, leaving Klusener stranded on 22 off 38 with one four and a six. The young man has tons of promise, but he really does need to get his thinking cap on for a change, if he is to live up to his undoubted promise as an all rounder. Adams caught Dravid bowled Srinath 2 off 8, SA all out 321.

The Indian bowlers all bowled on line with the stumps, with the field for the most part aggressively placed - and to their credit, they stuck to that line even when the batsmen gave them stick. Obviously, they had worked out that the only way to get wickets was to keep the ball right up and look for the edges, and three dropped catches and one missed stumping - by Mongia off Kumble when the bowler beat Cronje in the flight early in his innings - ensured that the hard work of the bowlers was somewhat negated by the fielders. Ganesh in particular has reason to feel aggrieved - he bowled a good line and length, induced Pollock to edge twice, and saw both chances go to waste. Prasad, for his part, was not his usual self, the trademark leg cutter in particular not working at all for him on the day. Kumble and Ganguly however compensated, backing Srinath up with some good bowling, the former in particular shrugging off the waywardness of his earlier two Tests.

And so there we have it, everything nice and poised for what, if the teams put their minds to it, could turn into one heck of a contest. And the onus now definitely with India to go looking for quick runs when they begin their second innings tomorrow morning - which raises a nice little question, would Azharuddin at number three in the order be an interesting option?

Let's see...