Third Test ends in tight draw

Prem Panicker

I guess that any way you look at it, this will count as a game that India threw away when it should have won it - rain, bad light and other factors notwithstanding.

When one watches a game from outside, and sees the obvious, it makes it all the more difficult to understand why the players on the ground do not see the same. And forgetting, for once, the impartiality of the reporter and speaking with heart as well as head, it becomes at that point rather frustrating for the bystander.

I mean, over five days, you see the Indian team undo all the bad work of the previous outings. You see them bat well, with application, in the first innings. You see them bowl with purpose and, on a good batting track, get the opposition out, the come back in the second and again, put themselves in a position to win. And then you see them push through the knife, till it looks as if the only possible result is an India win.

And then they go to sleep on the job.

Pity, then, that India will come back from the RSA tour with a Test scoreboard reading 2-0 with one game drawn, when by any yardstick it should have read 2-1.

Here are the hows and whys of it...

The SA second innings

As we had discussed at close of play yesterday, the obvious gameplan for India was to attack with everything it had got, secure in the knowledge that it would be almost impossible for South Africa to make any real bid for victory.

In any event, it made most sense to begin aggressively, and then reassess if and when the game seemed to be getting out of hand.

As it happened, South Africa - as it has done in the past - chose this time to prove, once more, that when the pressure is on, they tend to lose their collective head.

Gary Kirsten was the first culprit. In the beginning of his innings, he tends to be vulnerable outside his off stump. And just when it seemed expected of the South African vice captain to play within himself, not try anything extravagant and to make up for the quick dismissal of his opening partner late yesterday evening, Kirsten slashed at an away-going ball from Venkatesh Prasad and found the slip fielder's hands quite comfortably.

That brought Adam Bacher, a young man who, in the little that we have seen of him till date, has enormous potential to become one of the leading young stars on the international scene. Fluid in strokeplay, very compact in defense, temperament out of the top draw - and yet, the one fatal flaw of being not just sure, but arrogantly sure, of where his off stump lies. Time and again, in earlier match reports, we have mentioned this tendency of his to leave deliveries too close to the stumps for comfort, and he did it again here, letting one from Srinath go by and finding the ball bounce, hit his elbow and richochet onto the stumps. That ball was fractionally outside off stump, and nine out of ten batsmen in the world would have responded with the defensive push. Bacher needs to watch replays of his recent dismissals and sort this little glitch out, if he is to get the big scores his talent indicates he will.

Hansie Cronje was, as in earlier occasions in recent history, Mr Uncertain. Repeatedly beaten by Prasad, repeatedly troubled by Srinath who, nowadays, has made a fetish of going round the wicket when the SA skipper comes to the wicket, it appeared a matter of time before he was dismissed. In the event, it happened fortuituously - Cullinan, whose calling for a run at times serves to remind you that cricket is not for the faint-hearted, pushed, called and took off. All Kumble had to do was amble round to the on side, pick up and throw to Mongia to find Cronje several feet short of making the non-existent run. Why such a single was attempted, when SA should have been looking at consolidation, will of course remain a mystery.

Brian McMillan, the man in form, for once failed with the bat on home soil. Kumble, today, had begun tossing the ball right up and keeping it mostly on off stump. And immediately, he looked a much better bowler - getting bounce and turn, beating the bat repeatedly and troubling all the batsmen. McMillan, in form though he was, pushed hesitantly at a slower one from the leggie, the ball turned enough to take the edge, onto pad, for forward short leg to do the needful.

Shaun Pollock and a thunderstorm arrived at the wicket at almost the same time - reminiscent, I guess, of the contretemps of yesterday following the dismissal of Mohammad Azharuddin. And with play stopped for the next three hours, one was left with plenty of time to ruminate over the fact that Pollock, so clearly the aggressor in that fracas, was "not even questioned" by match referee Barry Jarman, while Azharuddin, whose glances back over his shoulder was interpreted as dissent, was reprimanded.

It was rather amusing to see South African coach Bob Woolmer vouch for his boys. "I questioned them, and they all said they had done nothing to Azharuddin," Woolmer said. Fine. Accepting that, would umpire Cyril Mitchley then tell us what it was that prompted him to summon Pollock and talk to him, even summoning fellow umpire Peter Willey for help? If Pollock had said nothing, done nothing, and only Azhar was needlessly dissenting, why then the need to haul the bowler up?

Ah well, put this, too, down as one of those things...

Regrettably, the Indians did not exactly distinguish themselves during the rain break. The thundershower stopped in about 40 minutes, and mopping up operations began. Typically, a team looking to win should have been out there, warming up, going through their limbering-up exercises and generally getting the edge back. Instead, they chose to remain in the dressing room, glued to television. And when the players themselves are in no almighty rush to resume, it is hardly likely that the umpires will be - so the game, in the event, resumed a good half an hour, 45 minutes later than it could have.

Why do I say that? Because the wicket was dry, the mopping up was satisfactory and in any event, if the outfield is wet the onus is on the fielding side to point that out, or to protest. And a team that has half a side down, and wants to get through the remaining five wickets in a hurry, makes more of an effort to get the game restarted ASAP.

Not such a big lapse, though, as proceedings after the interruption. The teams came back on with a possible 45 overs remaining to bowl. And now the gameplan was even more obvious. With half the side back in the pavilion for just 75 runs, no way was SA going to make a breakneck dash to reach the target, still over 300 runs away. A team keyed up to win would, at this point, have crowded the batsmen, putting them under enormous pressure and waiting to pounce on the least mistake - the more so as the possibility of light deteriorating and the overs being further curtailed did exist even then.

In the event, India resumed with just three slips and a forward short leg, while the rest of the fielders for some reason guarded the boundary.

If that display of needless defensiveness was inexplicable then, it became more so when, off the fifth ball after the interruption - and his own second in the over, Kumble having earlier completed the over he had left unfinished - Srinath bowled a beauty on the middle stump, leaving Pollock just a shade to slide past the edge of the bat and wreck his off stump.

Richardson hung on grimly for 28 deliveries, but Kumble, who consistently got bounce and turn, finally found the edge of his bat for Azhar to take another beauty at slip, to reduce SA to 95/7.

That left just Lance Klusener and Darryl Cullinan at the wicket. One more wicket, and Donald and Adams, neither of them with much pretensions to batting, would be exposed.

Instead, the Indians remained defensive. Srinath was persisted with way beyond the point where he was so fatigued as to be holding his side after each delivery. And in any event, even he was bowling to just three slips and no other close in fielder, while Prasad bowled to just two slips when he came on to replace his striking partner.

Darryl Cullinan at one point, when he was on 11, looked in danger of getting out in identical fashion to his first innings dismissal - pulling from off stump for Dharmani to hold a good one on the leg side. This time, however, the ball dropped just short of the fielder, who for his part reacted a fraction late. And from that point on, Cullinan grew in stature, batting with an authority and freedom that made one wonder what the situation would have been if the earlier batsmen had also used their heads.

In the meantime, Lance Klusener eschewed his wild hoiks of the first innings, and defended well. With few close in fielders, besides, it became easy for him to work the ball around for singles, to rotate strike and to increasingly frustrate the Indian bowlers. In fact, so surprisingly did the Indians perform in the field - an axiom, when light is a problem, is to rush through your overs, trot across to your fielding positions after each over, all of which the Indians ignored, preferring instead to stroll leisurely as though it was they, and not SA, that was fighting to draw the game - that Klusener began blossoming out, hitting five good fours and one of his trademark swings for six, picking out Sachin Tendulkar for that attention when the Indian captain, in a belated show of energy, decided to bowl himself.

Tendulkar has strained his side bowling in the first Test, and been advised not to bowl for at least six months. Why then take the ball himself, when he obviously could not do justice to his job? It could be argued that the failing light meant that the batsmen would have appealed for light if the quicks were used - but then, the obvious ploy was to use Ganesh, medium pace at best and if the protest still came, to use Kumble at one end and Ganguly at the other. Instead, Ganesh bowled just two overs, Ganguly the same number, and so did the obviously unfit Tendulkar himself - yet another of those decisions that had the spectator scratching his head.

It was only against the run of play that Klusener found Dravid at forward shortleg off bat and pad to Kumble and the eight SA wicket went down at 222 - the previous one, mind you, had gone at 95, and in the interim, though Darryl Cullinan did bat with complete freedom and Klusener with determination, enough edges flew all over the place to indicate that with a more attacking field, the innings would have been wrapped up in much comfort.

And suddenly India was a side transformed, ringing Donald with six, seven round the bat. As luck would have it, Kumble bowled at his best, beating the bat, on occasion just shaving the stumps, finding edges - all without success and, with four overs still to be bowled, the umpires finally called off play for bad light.

India will regret this result, because there is a world of difference between a scoreline that reads 2-1, and one that goes 2-0. And if a team does not strike when in position to, then all the talent in the world won't be of much use.

In the event, Rahul Dravid was the cert for man of the match, Allan Donald man of the series. And as Donald himself pointed out in his acceptance speech, he was run very close for the honour by Srinath and Prasad who, unlike Donald, had no backup bowlers to support them and yet, strove superbly to claim 18 and 17 wickets apiece, to add to the 25 they had already claimed on the Indian leg of the series earlier.

So that is it, the Castle Lager series comes to an end, focus shifts to the one day series to follow - but of that another day...

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