Advantage India, certainly … but South Africa have suddenly served up a gutsy little reminder that they retain an ambition to “escape” at Eden Gardens and thus still win the series.
For a large portion of day two in the second Test at Kolkata on Monday, courtesy of a magical near 250-run partnership between home-team idols Virender Sehwag and Sachin Tendulkar, the Proteas looked as if they were tumbling at a disturbing rate of knots into a bottomless pit.
But they somehow stuck out a collective hand and grabbed something to hold onto late in the day, arresting the fall for the time being.
Three wickets in rapid succession, after several hours of pain and suffering, left India not quite so imperiously placed in their first knock, 46 runs to the good with five wickets in hand.
South Africa 296
India 342/5 (76.0 ov)
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.
The Sehwag storm struck South Africa with full force and pretty much blew everything in its way to a 13th 150-plus score. Amid the mayhem, it was easy to forget the cool, pleasant breeze that was Sachin Tendulkar’s 92nd international century – his fourth in four Tests.
84.1
Steyn to Mishra, FOUR, edged to fine-leg boundary. It was a full in length delivery outside off stump, Mishra was not going to get in line the first delivery of the new ball, was he?!, he just stayed on the leg stump line and had a swat and the ball ran away off the inner edge
The New ball has been taken
Two critical moments in the first session determined the flow of the game. Sehwag – 43 off 21 then – had the fastest Test fifty and a few other records in sight when he ran Gambhir out, and he chastised himself by playing disciplined cricket for a while. Around the same time Morne Morkel indulged in some reverse-rattling, took out M Vijay, troubled Sehwag with accurate bouncers and induced an edge only to see JP Duminy – at first slip because of the finger injury to Graeme Smith – drop him on 47. Sehwag could have gone at an even more frenetic rate but for the run-out. South Africa could have been in control had Sehwag fallen then.
More super
Ons kort vroee paaltjies !!
87.4
Morkel to Mishra, OUT, 137.2 kph, Fine catch from Kallis at second slip. It kicks up from short of length outside off, came in slightly, Mishra goes for that upper cut again and Kallis leaps to grab it from over his head ..
A Mishra c Kallis b Morkel 28 (38b 5×4 0x6) SR: 73.68
Morning Super and Blouste,
See we 388/6 One wicket down since last yesterday.
Yes , yes Blouste ek gaan maar niks se nie maar ons is in die pooo hier.
Sien ons gaan verloor.
Ek is jammer maar dinge lyk maar af.
Nou gaan die donners my verkeerd bewys, sien dit werk………….. dalk
Puma , getting them out is one thing , getting the out of form players and injured Smith to play BIG innings is another thing.
9 – Super, Agree Smith needs to come out and bat big like he done in the last test against England. Prince and Duminy HAVE to make runs in the 2nd innings. Otherwise we are relly 3 batsmen short.
Super, what is the problem with Smith? Where is he injured?
10 – relly = really
Some finger injury again,
i am going to work now enjoy
Morkel off so we short of a bowler now too. See J. Botha on who should have played in this test for the out of form Prince or Duminy as both of them are out of form. Probably should have replaced Prince as Duminy can bowl. Johan would have added something with the bat and he can bowl too.
We need to get 400 in our second innings to save this. The pitch is still playing fine.
But that spinners against our middle order worry me.
435/6
We struggling to bowl them out. Runs coming quick there now.
We could lose this and by a inning too. Smith injured and Prince and Duminy out of form with the bat. Need to dig deep when we come in to bat.
15 – Hokaai, you right it is their spinners that worry me too. We really don’t play spin well. Maybe Petersen and Amla the rest will fall quick to their spinners.
This is only day 3 so think we in big trouble here. Not sure if we can save this test but REALLY hope we can. Then we win the series. Just having doubts now though.
goodmorning everyone
yes, things doesnt look so good for our cricket ballerinas, does it?
thing is …. this team doesnt look like they really want that number 1 position or the pressure of getting there is getting to them!!
jeez man, i’ve cant remember when last we’ve dropped so nmany chances!!
india is in a demanding position … because WE have put them there
but
i still believe we can turn this one around and for that we need gsmith to come to the party when we bat again. think we can still salvage a draw from this one.
i’ve cant = i cant 😳
nmany = many
19 – Morning Ash, Hope so. We need our batsmen to come out and do their job. We stuggle against spin and think their spinners will get a lot out of that pitch.
Really do hope that GS can bat well. Has a injury and also Prince and Duminy who when on form are class batsmen but both our totally out of form at the moment. Then this could be where they may do it for the team. Really hoping.
puma @ 21
heres hoping that it might become one of the classics … just think sa down and out on day 3 only to come and win it? 😀
#22
ok, maybe that is stretching it a bit,
but
stranger things have happened!!
puma
btw what happened to your sharks buddy, snoek?
please dont tell me he’s in jail for throwing bottles? 😯
Graeme Armstrong: “Had SA taken their chances it is likely the game would have taken on a totally different complexion. By my count, we have missed 7 chances! A poor and unsettled performance in the field.”
Ons moes nooit hulle laat opvolg het laasweek nie nou is hulle de moer in, watch hulle sal aanhou kolf tot 700 as ons hulle nie uitboul nie.
24 – Snoek was on here late yesterday afternoon. Just got back from Durbs I think.
It was plastic cups they threw. Even so that is just not on. I am against all of that nonsense. Those that done it should be banned from ever going to the Tank.
25 – Super, We missed plenty chances. Could have been us in the driving seats here going for a win. Now looks like they going to win and win by a innings if we don’t bat well.
India on 516/6
India is destroying us now. Dhoni can moer a quick 200 if he is ion form.
*Paul Harris(sla) 40.0 3 149 1 3.72 155 13 2 12-1-41-0 29 87 6/127 34.74
Jean-Paul Duminy(ob) 4.0 0 25 1 6.25 11 3 0 3-0-21-0 12 11 3/89 32.72
Puma i want Duminy out there soon, hell this guy needs help and coaching fast, or we lose him forever
Users Online
Total 242 users including 0 member, 242 guests, 0 bot online
Most users ever online were 3735, on 31 August 2022 @ 6:23 pm
No Counter as from 31 October 2009: 41,449,842 Page Impressions
_