This is not merely about the ICC rankings. A series win in India is a big box any team other than India needs to tick if it wants to be the best in the world. Think Australia in their modern heyday and the frustration and the eventual satisfaction the “Final Frontier” brought them. India, on the other hand, pride themselves on their home record, and their claims to being the best will take a big beating if they lose.
Graeme Smith won his second toss of the series and decided to bat on a pitch that had the grass shaved off, but retained a tinge of green that was expected to keep the surface bound together. That Smith was there for the toss was in itself good news for South Africa. He chose to play through the pain of a fractured finger, but Mark Boucher’s back trouble didn’t go away in time, which made way for a debut for Alviro Petersen.
Petersen – a specialist opener by trade – could give Ashwell Prince, a reluctant opener, a chance to bat in his preferred middle order.
India, needing a win to hang on to their No. 1 ranking, were boosted by the expected return of VVS Laxman, but resisted any changes to the bowling combination that managed six wickets in 176 overs in Nagpur. Amit Mishra and Ishant Sharma, wicketless in 81 overs between them, were persisted with. It was almost expected that Sreesanth would come in for the struggling Ishant, but India gave Ishant another go.
South Africa: 1 Graeme Smith (capt), 2 Alviro Petersen, 3 Hashim Amla, 4 Jacques Kallis, 5 AB de Villiers (wk), 6 JP Duminy, 7 Ashwell Prince, 8 Paul Harris, 9 Wayne Parnell, 10 Dale Steyn, 11 Morne Morkel.
India: 1 Virender Sehwag, 2 Gautam Gambhir, 3 M Vijay, 4 Sachin Tendulkar, 5 VVS Laxman, 6 S Badrinath, 7 MS Dhoni (capt/wk), 8, Harbhajan Singh, 9 Zaheer Khan, 10 Amit Mishra, 11 Ishant Sharma.
Harris gone too, surely Steyn will bowl today.
70.3
Sharma to Harris, OUT, IShant does the namashkar – palms folded together as he bows forward and salutes/thanks the batsman (?!). IT was a short of length delivery outside off stump and Harris edges the intended drive to Dhoni
Cheers Super, 8 down now. I also hope that AB can keep well. Just hope we don’t miss Boucher there too.
89 – Cheers Winston.
Ugly read this,
Fall of wickets1-9 (Smith, 2.6 ov), 2-218 (Petersen, 52.4 ov), 3-229 (Amla, 56.4 ov), 4-251 (Kallis, 65.1 ov), 5-253 (Prince, 67.1 ov), 6-253 (Duminy, 67.2 ov), 7-254 (de Villiers, 68.3 ov), 8-255 (Harris, 70.3 ov)
From 3 for 251 to 8 for 256
95 – Super it looks even worse written there. Not good at all. A huge batting collapse. Parnell and Steyn trying but not sure how long they will last. Hope they get more than the lot that collapsed.
Pity after such a great start that Amla and Petersen gave us.
Puma – I see you were looking for me at 7:30am this beautiful Sunday morning….
Well, let me put it rather bluntly…. hehehehehe… I am NEVER, ever, ever, ever up that early on a Sunday…. chances are that I’m never up on a Sunday till after 10:30am….
I work hard enough in the week to deserve this luxury…
….. and heyyyyyyyyyyyy, it’s Valentine’s Day, the day of LURRRRRRRRRRRVVVEEEEEEEEE…
Late this afternoon Handbriekie and myself will be having a private and romantic fondu-feast…. so I’ll also not be available for the England / Italy match in the Six Nations….
So, SuperBul, you’re on duty to supply a GAME THREAD, I’m otherwise occupied… in fact, I see that SuperBul is celebrating a family birthday, so I’l schedule a match thread to just appear…. enjoy it!
97 – GBS…….hahahaha. You sleep late you miss out on life you lazy bones………hehe. Ag, not lazy in work but sleeping too late.
Super, Winston and I blogged lekker during the crici. No problem.
Enjoy your day GBS, you deserve it mate. You work hard and hard on this blog too.
Fondu is sounds great. Enjoy. We went out to a restaurant drowned a bit of my sorrows with the loss of my Sharkies last night…haha.
Catch up tomorrow boeta.
Its a pity that Oom Gbs was not here to chat,but we’ll have to pick it up another day 🙂
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