Hurtling ahead

At the end of a manic second day of the second India-South Africa Test match, a result is definitely on. Who will win is still in the balance.

The food in the pavilion must be really good or the wicket must stink a great deal. How else does one explain the haste with which batsman after batsman has left the crease? 18 wickets fell in the day and, in reality, the number should have been much less. In the first inning, India's last four wickets fell in no time at all. And South Africa scarcely batted long enough to register in the scorebooks.

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.

What's eating Gilbert Grape?

Jacques Kallis usually scores at about 45 runs per 100 balls. A big chunk of the criticism directed towards Kallis, and a huge reason why he is not revered as much as his mind-boggling stats indicate that he should be, is that he tends to hold one end up and bats in a frustratingly sedate, single-minded, plodding manner irrespective of the match situation.

Imagine my surprise when I saw the very same Kallis blasting his way to a 130 ball century. One of the hopes I held out for the 2nd day was that the South Africans would bat slowly, scoring only about 270-300 in the day's play. Instead they motored along at more than 4 runs per over and are extremely close to batting India completely out of it.

Thank you, Graeme Smith

It will not take long for the knives to sharpen and for India's "lack of preparation" to be bandied about as the reason for the spectacular opening day collapse against South Africa at Centurion.

Pshaw! The reality is that the bowling by the two pacemen was so sustained and brilliant that India would have collapsed no matter which match of the series they were playing. Heck, ANY batting line-up (including the SAffer line-up of this very Test) in the world would have collapsed. Dale Steyn is the deadliest wicket-taker in the history of the game (if you keep a cut-off of at least 113 wickets). He takes a wicket once every 40 balls. In this inning, so far, he is striking at twice that rate (once every 20 balls). Steyn is a rare gem - a super-fast bowler who relies on swing and accuracy, rather than bounce or fear to get people out. The last bowler who I can recall having a similar effect on me was a similarly small-statured Malcolm Marshall (whose strike rate was 46.7 balls per wicket).

Timber!!

(CricInfo 2006)

The third day of the South Africa-India Test belonged to two people - Dale Steyn and Virender Sehwag. Not since I saw Malcolm Marshall in 1984 have I seen such a sustained spell of aggressive pace bowling on Indian soil. But Steyn reminds me more of Kapil Dev because his stock ball is the one that goes away, the harder to bowl outswinger. Steyn has a long-ish run-up that builds up in pace, an easy action but some of the fastest hands in the business. After his jump his arms swing faster than his run-up suggests and the length of the ball is one that invites batsmen to lean forward and drive. A brilliant ball like that got Sachin Tendulkar to lean forward, slightly off-balance, and the movement did the rest. But Murali Vijay and Wriddhiman Saha, in particular, and other Indian batsmen barring Viru, in general, were tentative about stepping forward because of the 90mph pace and instead shouldered arms or prodded awkwardly and paid the price for their diffidence.