Shamik Chakrabarty in Guwahati
Kuldeep Yadav at the press conference after the second day’s play: “… yahan pe pura road tha (we have a road here).”
It didn’t age well. On a sluggish pitch that looked placid until yesterday, Indian batsmen were bounced out by Marco Jansen on the third day of the second Test here in Guwahati. At Eden Gardens, they couldn’t play spin on a turner. On an ACA Stadium surface, still pretty good, they failed to handle the lift.
Take the case of Dhruv Jurel, the team’s makeshift No. 4 in Shubman Gill’s absence. Less than 10 minutes to go for the tea interval, he decided to go for a pull. Jansen had banged it short, assuming that the slowness of the pitch might induce mistiming. Jurel played into the bowler’s hands. The ball popped up from the cue-end of the bat and Keshav Maharaj took the catch, running to his right at mid-on. The batsman perished for an 11-ball duck.
After the break, Rishabh Pant played arguably the worst shot of the series yet. Once again, Jansen dragged his length back, but India’s stand-in captain charged down the track in an attempt to slap the ball away. He could only manage an edge behind the stumps. The sound was heard even from the stands, but Pant decided to review. If the shot was poor, his decision to go upstairs was atrocious.
Nitish Kumar Reddy, playing as an all-rounder, lost his shape and balance against another short ball from Jansen, and it flew off the glove to the right of Aiden Markram at third slip. The South African pulled off a blinder.
Ravindra Jadeja was done in by a well-directed bouncer – the delivery hitting the batsman’s shoulder onto the bat and then to Markram at slip. At that point, Jansen had taken four wickets for 11 runs in 25 balls in that spell. The Proteas brilliantly used the short-ball ploy to floor the hosts. India, when they were bowling, didn’t seem to have a Plan B.
At the time of writing this copy, India are 154/7 in their first innings, with Washington Sundar being the only recognised batsman left. The left-hand batter’s batting positions in his last seven Test innings, including this one, under Gautam Gambhir as head coach – No. 5, No. 8, No. 9, No. 7, No. 3, No. 3 and No. 8.
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