Moving day

On a day when 16 wickets fell on two different continents, one thing became apparent. There isn't a single batting line-up these days that can score runs when the ball is swinging and moving around. A few days ago, England suffered when Mitchell Johnson broke the habit of a lifetime to find swing in Perth. The vaunted™ Indian batting line-up has now collapsed twice in two Test matches. I haven't seen the South Africans bat in such testing conditions yet, but I don't really see why they should be any different. If India's luck holds out, we may find out later on the second day of the second Test match in Durban.

Of the 16 wickets to fall (10 in Australia, 6 in South Africa), 15 were caught behind the wicket. The lone person to get out caught in front of the wicket deserves his own paragraph a little later in this post.

India has lost 14 of the last 15 tosses in Tests, a recipe that invites disaster, especially on pitches that are tailor-made to suit the home team's strength. Of course, it is only when India prepares dust-bowls to favor their spinners do reporters raise a storm. It is somehow kosher to prepare swinging tracks or bouncing wickets, but heaven forbid a pitch takes turn.

Of the 6 Indian wickets that fell, Sachin Tendulkar and Cheteshwar Pujara were guilty of throwing it away. In 2003, Australia preyed on a peculiar SRT tendency to drive away from his body into the cover region. The plan worked so well that it eventually produced a 241 run unbeaten inning in Sydney that featured zero runs in the cover region. Well, many years later, SRT got out to another left-armer, pushing away from his body to give Jacques Kallis another catch (165 and counting) at second slip. For all that my favorite SRT shot of all-time is a similar one he hit against Wasim Akram in that World Cup match in 2003. (See the shot at the 3:30 mark in the video below). From the way he held his pose, I bet he loved it, too.)



Anyway, SRT fell to that old failing of his while Pujara, not having learned from a reprieve off a top edged pull, tried it again and gave Boucher the easiest catch of his life.

The only batsman who looked remotely comfortable during his tenure and, at the same time, took the challenge to the SAffers was VVS Laxman. Early in his inning, VVS had a mishit off an attempted pull off Morkel and learned his lesson. For the rest of the inning he carefully ducked or swayed out of the way when Morkel and Kallis bounced, but took on Dale Steyn and Lonwabe Tsotsobe when they pitched it short. Along the way he even managed to hit Steyn for the flattest six imaginable over square-leg, only the 5th six of his Test career! He had serenely moved along to 38 when he unfurled a full-blooded pull off Steyn. The crunch of the bat hitting the ball had barely subsided when Tsotsobe reflexively hung his right hand out (which is his weak hand) while diving away to his right and somehow the ball stuck. To rub salt on the wounds of Laxman-philes around the world, this was the first catch of Tsotobe's 4 Test career and he is not even known as a safe fielder. Gah! Double gah!!

Having said all this, I must confess that the Indian batsmen showed lots of guts and character, which bodes well for the rest of the game. If the pitch remains the way it is, I suspect even the SAffers will struggle.

There's only one problem. The weather forecast is not too good for the remaining 4 days, with predictions of disturbances on all of them. If the weather gods cooperate, we are in for a corking Test match.