India series against South Africa was thought by many as the one that will take them closer to Australia as the top Test team in the game. After the Test series in Australia where India came back strongly after losing the first two Tests hopes were raised that the same form would continue and India would easily beat South Africa and stake a claim for being the number two side in the world. If anything with South Africa drawing the series and that too in India, they have the right to claim the No. 2 ranking in the world. The Proteas have done remarkably well in the subcontinent this year, after a pretty disastrous tour to Sri Lanka last year and that is a tribute to the homework that was done by the coach and captain. They were well prepared for the rigors of touring India this time of the year and had brought along a combination that showed that they were going to hang tough and not give it up, as most touring teams with the shining exception of Australia do whenever they are touring the subcontinent. Teams touring India invariably lose patience and that is their downfall. Be it wickets or runs, patience is a virtue in India and the Proteas were terrific in that regard. Their batting was based on playing a mix of the cautious and aggressive game but for the second innings in Kanpur, it worked wonderfully.
India were undone not so much by the little grass on the pitch at Motera, but by some cracking deliveries that got rid of their top batsmen there. The deliveries that got Dravid, Laxman and Jaffer out were virtually unplayable ones and that set about a bit of panic in the rest. The pitch had little to do with those dismissals for it definitely was not demonic enough to have a team with India’s batting line-up out in twenty overs. It was never going to be easy to come back from that.
Both teams had their heroes and South Africa owe a lot to the openers Smith and Mackenzie who gave the team a solid start in just about every innings. Hasim Amla and Kallis carried on from the starts that the openers gave and the surprise was AB de Villiers. Nobody expected him to show the patience he did in waiting for the scoreable ball to come along. If India believed that he was just a batsman wanting to hit the cover off the ball, that impression was quickly put to rest as he piled up a double century of the highest class at Motera. It was the pace attack of the Proteas who were the real heroes. They bowled splendidly on unhelpful pitches and hardly gave any respite to the Indians. Both Steyn and Morkel were relentlessly at the throats of the Indian batsmen and Ntini though not as pacy now as these two, never eased the pressure.
Virender Sehwag’s triple ton at Chennai was the batting highlight of the series for India. However the batting of Saurav Ganguly on a bowler friendly pitch at Kanpur and also at Ahmedabad in the second innings was tremendous. He missed well deserved hundreds both times dismissed on 87 and he may well reflect that if he had taken the extra second and third runs then he would have added two more centuries to his total in Tests.
Still it was an effort that shows that there is nothing like experience in Test cricket. Dravid’s ton at Chennai got him in the 10,000 club but he was not at his best otherwise. Harbhajan was the pick of the bowlers for India and Sehwag was the only other bowler who looked threatening. The others were disappointing to say the least. As for the fielding, if South Africa get 8 out of ten India would struggle to get 4 and that is another reason India will take a long time to achieve their dream of getting to the No. 1 spot in Test cricket.
