Shamik Chakrabarty in Guwahati
On a good Test match pitch, the pure skills of the Indian bowlers, Kuldeep Yadav in particular, came to the fore. It was a joy to behold.
Exhibit 1: Kuldeep tossed one up to Wiaan Mulder – slower in the air and outside off. Mulder’s eyes lit up, he fancied an inside-out drive over extra-cover. The ball dipped and the batsman didn’t get the required elevation. Yashasvi Jaiswal at mid-off, a little deepish, took a simple catch. On the face of it, Mulder was done in by poor shot selection. In reality, he was fooled by Kuldeep’s craft.
Exhibit 2: Tristan Stubbs was a run short of his half-century. It’s a little difficult to associate him with Test batting, a player who plays with such hard hands. But here, he was playing intelligently, coming forward and using his reach. A pitch with true bounce was allowing him to play on the up as well. Kuldeep deceived him with a full ball that angled across him. It wasn’t a googly and Stubbs was in a good position to negotiate the delivery. Just that he couldn’t handle the extra bounce and KL Rahul at slip took a good catch.
Rahul had erred in the morning after India lost yet another toss that allowed South Africa to bat first. Jasprit Bumrah made one move away off the seam and Aiden Markram nicked it to Rahul at second slip. Normally a safe fielder, Rahul dropped the sitter. The opener was on eight then and his team, 16/0. Markram eventually was castled by Bumrah at the stroke of lunch but by then, he had stitched an 82-run opening partnership with Ryan Rickelton. More than the runs, however, India lost out on about 90 minutes of early morning freshness, when the conditions might have helped them make further inroads.
Rickelton was Kuldeep’s first wicket on the day, the ball drifting in and spinning away to take the outside edge to Rishabh Pant behind the stumps. Then, Bavuma and Stubbs added 84 runs for the third wicket, but Ravindra Jadeja got the better of the Proteas skipper.
Another positive was Pant’s captaincy. On his debut in that role, the southpaw didn’t look to be under pressure. He used his bowlers well. Bringing back Bumrah right before the tea interval yielded results. Giving Kuldeep the right end to bowl straight away after tea was another good call. If one wants to be over-critical, maybe the stand-in captain should have given Kuldeep a longer spell instead of just three overs post-tea, with Stubbs at the crease. But the bigger question is that with so much quality in the bowling ranks, why does the Indian team management at times get obsessed with the pitch and ask for rank turners? Eden Gardens was a costly error.
On a day when Guwahati became India’s 30th Test centre, a turnout of more than 15,000 enjoyed some quality cricket from the home team. South Africa finished the day on 247/6. Mohammed Siraj getting Tony de Zorzi in the final over of the day tilted the balance in India’s favour.
Brief scores: South Africa 247/6, 81.5 overs (Tristan Stubbs 49, Temba Bavuma 41; Kuldeep Yadav 3/48) vs India
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