India vs South Africa: First Test, Day 2

It’s now a battle between the willow and the spinning cherry.

The 22 yards at Nagpur was turning like a spinning wheel but Amit Mishra and Harbhajan Singh proved to be two dead ducks. Or is it that the Proteas do play the spinners much better than expected. That can easily explain the magnificent unbeaten double ton by Hashim Amla and the humongous total of declaring at 558/6 wickets.

The South African way of batting on the first two days of the first Test, was smeared with arrogance. We are not accustomed to see too many of 500+ runs scored on our soil, especially on turning tracks. Our ego does get hurt when we direct the groundsmen to remove the grass from the surface and grow the baldness on the track to suit our playing conditions and then the men from across the rivers come flying by, dances on the floor and bludgeons any rotating arsenal with a “Made in India” stamp on it.

Such domination with Proteas bat must have really hurt MSD. He employed his entire armoury, played all his cards in 176 overs to get close to the South African tail, but Kallis, Amla, de Villiers, resisted them with élan, exposing the two faced nature of the wicket. One way it was assisting the spinners – Mishra looked menacing turning the balls more than required to get wickets. The other side of the coin was the slowness – providing perhaps ample time to catch up on a novel before playing your shots. And at this level of top class cricket, the Amlas, Kallis and de Villiers could have finished up an epic.

The epic tussle now reverts to Sehwag and Gambhir. Perhaps the best opening pair in the world currently, the focus shifts to the Indian way of replying. Usually India replies with a strong feeling of pride. And if anything else, pride is at a premium stake in this series. For whoever goes away with it, also tucks the number one position for the ICC year ending.

We don’t want the South Africans steal away from our own backyard, which has been rightfully earned with pride. Can we?

Brief Scores:

South Africa (1st Innings): 558/6 d (Kallis 173, Amla 253*, Zaheer 3/96)
India (1st Innings): 25/0