At the end of the second Test in Calcutta, a pillow was sent to the coach of the South African team, Ray Jennings. That pillow had an inscription asking him to sleep well on the flight to South Africa and was signed by all the members of the Indian team. All this was simply in response to Jennings’ comments on the eve of the Test that the Indian team carried pillows to the ground in Kanpur. It was a classic case of the pot calling the kettle black for if anything, it was the South African team that had started the defensive trend in the first Test at Kanpur. When the pillow was presented to the coach, there was laughter from the other South African players, who immediately understood why the pillow had been sent. If on the one hand it shows how the Indian cricket team has now matured to use criticism to positive effect, on the other hand it shows that ‘talking cricket’ is a heck of a lot easier than playing cricket. Jennings missed out on the experience of Test cricket due to the isolation of South Africa and so may have thought that a few comments made to try and denigrate the opposition would have a demoralizing effect, but has now found out that action means more than words at the international level. To an extent, one can understand why the Proteas approached the series in the manner they did, for they knew that they did not have an attack that could dismiss the Indian batting line-up twice in a Test match.
There was a suggestion at the end of the Test series that Boje’s presence would have helped, but that’s again an instance of living in cuckoo land. True, Ontong and Pieterson had little experience and found the going tough against the Indians, but Boje couldn’t have fared much better either. Pollock and Ntini tried hard but with little support had to be over-bowled, especially at the Eden Gardens and even there the taking of the second new ball was delayed, which did not make sense at all. While the pitches in South Africa will certainly give more help to the quicker bowlers, unless South Africa find a third seam bowler to assist the duo above, they will be in for a hard time against Vaughan’s English team.
Even in the batting department, the South Africans have to depend on the grittiness of the captain Graeme Smith and the class of Kallis. Rudolph had little clue to which way Harbhajan was going to turn the ball and though he too showed patience like Dippenaar, they both will be easy picking for quality spinners. South Africa’s plus has been the emergence of Zander de Bruyn, who showed not only good temperament but impressed with his ability to play late at the turning ball. As a bowler too, he is pretty useful and though he won’t be a major wicket-taker, he can be the kind of cricketer a team needs at No. 7 or 8.
For India, the return to form of Tendulkar in the second innings of the Test would have taken away a great deal of worry. The biggest cheer was for Kumble equaling Kapil Dev’s record of 434 Test wickets. Although Harbhajan got 7 wickets in the second innings, Kumble was no less as he relentlessly probed the South African defense. He did not relax the pressure at all and as can happen in a partnership, it was Harbhajan who benefited. The offie, who is a livewire in the dressing room as well as on the field, showed a tremendous range of deliveries that the Proteas found difficult to handle. The fielding of the team also was much more purposeful than at Kanpur where everybody quickly realized that the game was meandering to a draw. The win will erase the memory of the loss in 2000 and hopefully will be the start of a new attitude and approach for the rest of the season.
