Shamik Chakrabarty in Guwahati
For a moment, let’s rewind to Sitanshu Kotak’s press conference two days before the match. “See, the last match wicket, Gautam (Gambhir) took all the blame on himself,” India’s batting coach had said. Honestly, I will talk all the honest things, what I know and what I feel. He took the blame because he felt that he should not take the blame to the curators.”
In Kolkata, it was a case of whose pitch was it anyway. In Guwahati, on a proper Test match surface, albeit sluggish, South Africa posted 489 in their first innings. The highest first-innings total for a visiting team to lose a Test in India is 478 – Australia in 2010 in Bangalore. South Africa have gone past that here, riding on Senuran Muthusamy’s maiden Test hundred and Marco Jansen’s blazing 93 off 91 balls. More importantly, a decade-and-a-half ago, in that game, Rahul Dravid was India’s No. 3 and Sachin Tendulkar No. 4. Sai Sudharsan is the current one-down batsman, while in Shubman Gill’s absence, Dhruv Jurel is likely to bat at No. 4.
Five Indian bowlers bowled more than 25 overs during South Africa’s first innings – Jasprit Bumrah 32, Mohammed Siraj 30, Kuldeep Yadav 29.1, Ravindra Jadeja 28 and Washington Sundar 26. The sixth bowler, Nitish Kumar Reddy, the seam-bowling all-rounder, bowled only six overs. He is ostensibly playing as a batsman who can roll his arm over. But, does a team need eight batsmen on a good pitch? The common consensus is that if the top seven batsmen fail to score runs, the No. 8 is unlikely to be a game-changer. Have India picked the right combination for this must-win Test? With the two frontline fast bowlers, Bumrah and Siraj, doing the bulk of the bowling, did the hosts miss a specialist third seamer in Akash Deep?
The biggest let-down on the day, however, was Kuldeep. The left-arm wrist-spinner bowled pretty well on Day 1 to return with three wickets. Today, he struggled to find his length. It, at times, didn’t please stand-in captain Rishabh Pant, who was repeatedly urging his teammate to bowl fuller. For Kuldeep though, it was a bad day at the office, notwithstanding that he returned with four wickets. Also, India received a stop-clock warning because he was late to start his over, much to the chagrin of Pant. Yes, the pitch offered nothing, but a bowler of Kuldeep’s calibre is expected to overcome the challenge.
South Africa brilliantly paced their innings. They scored only six runs in the first five overs on Day 2, and 69 runs in 29.1 overs in the first session. But not losing any wicket in the first two hours did the trick for them. Muthusamy and Kyle Verreynne stitched an 88-run partnership for the seventh wicket. After that, Jansen came and laid into the Indian bowling. The run-rate suddenly got a facelift. A 97-run eighth wicket partnership off 107 balls all but took the game away from India. Muthusamy made a polished 109 off 206 balls. Jansen’s innings had six fours and seven sixes.
India finished the day on nine for no loss.
Brief scores: South Africa 489 in 151.1 overs (Senuran Muthusamy 109, Marco Jansen 93; Kuldeep Yadav 4/115, Jasprit Bumrah 2/75) vs India 9/0 in 6.1 overs (Yashasvi Jaiswal 7*, KL Rahul 2*)
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