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.
29 – Super, Yip worried about this happening yesterday when we struggled to get them out. Far too much for us to chase down now. Will be too much pressure on us. Time is on there side. Only day 3.
They wont declare with only just over 200 ahead of us but will once they are 300. Then remember they can come back to bat. So maybe they will declare today.
What a shame really after such a good start by Petersen and Amla. If only our other batsmen came to the party. We may have had 500 or more.
30 – Super, You right. Duminy is young and such a good batsmen who can bowl too. Needs to get his batting back on track and wont do that playing test cricket. Needs to go back to domestic crici for awhile to sort it out. Otherwise he may never get it back.
meant – batsman
540/6 India are smashing us.
244 lead eishh !!!!!!
Day three only and it doen’t look like anyone is troubling them…
Groot marakkas !!!
To top it all, they are batting fast 4,15 per over
618/6
They smashing us all over the park.
Steyn and Morkel better break a vinger or 2 of the Indian bowlers……. if they get to them, they wont bowl again after this innings
One can only hope 😥
Lead of 347 declared…
Now the :poop: starts !!!
Sa Batsmen now realy have to come to the party…
How do you go about this now.
Get the score and set up a lead or just try to bat it out ?
Both sounds equally impossible at this stage…
South Africa 296
India 643/6d (153.0 ov)
India lead by 347 runs with 4 wickets remaining in the 1st innings
obviously is hierdie wicket nou goed vir batting….hulle het gese dat die eerste dag die beste was om wickets te kry, daarna gaan dit goed wees om op te bat, so ek se dat ons outjies moet en kan daar staan en ook groot score opsit, indien hulle nie hulle wickets weer weggooi nie
Saved by poor light
Off due to bad light.
Still 2 days left… Does it never rain in India 😆
Umpire Steve Davis has another look at the light meter. He now walks towards the other umpire. Both have a chat. It has gone murky out there. Could this be it?
Bad light stops play They still haven’t called it stumps. The batsmen have gone back, the Indians still waiting out there, hoping for the light to improve! That’s why the declaration was going to be tricky.
We only have ourselves to blame for this.. We should have scored at least 500 in the first innings after two of our Top 3 batters got 100’s. South Africa seems to have a pattern of falling asleep during one session and losing a test match. It happened to us against England in Durban and nearly happened to us against Australia in Perth. Its not an ability thing,it seems to be something mental that is missing..
48 – Hi Winston, Agree think it is a mental thing. We were well up with Amla and Petersen batting then in come the rest and they collapsed. If Kallis and AB should have got more runs both are class batsmen. We should have got at least 500 and now we would be looking either to win it or draw this test and take the series. It has all changed and now we are looking at a innings defeat coming up. I really hope not but that is how it looks the way it will go. Huge pity after such a great start to this test.
To be honest if we manage to get a draw it’d be a minor miracle and after we batted so terribly after that collapse we deserve to lose this match. But lets hope I’m wrong and somebody scores a big double hundred 🙂
I feel we go through stages in the match were the instructions from the dressing room dictates our game plan. We dont play the situation well.
Amla and Peterson was scoring at about 5 per over, then they started to slow down. In fact Amla tried to lose his wicket for about 10 overs before he eventually did. Peterson went through the nervous nineties and his mind was not there when he lost his wicket.
During the drinks break India instructed the bowlers to put in some fire and i was surprised we faltered there. We should have punished them , instead we gave them the momentum.
India yesterday and today kept a run rate above 4.2 all the time. They never slowed down. this was a fast 600+.
We must play positive and set ourself a target of 320 to 350 runs for the day. That way we might prevent a innings defeat. This maybe even set up a chance to set them a target.
Comment: Rob Houwing, Sport24 chief writer
Cape Town – South Africa are on the chopping board … now how fiercely do they want to resist being slid unceremoniously into the frying pan?
Sliced and diced in the field by a remorseless Indian batting performance on day three of the second Test at Kolkata on Tuesday, we will soon find out as they strive to bat for a minimum (note, minimum) of five sessions to save the match and win the series.
Some divine intervention at least made their rigorous task a teeny-weeny bit easier when bad light brought an early close to their second innings after only five balls, instead of what was intended to be a handful of spicy overs before stumps.
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