Indian bowlers control second ODI

Irfan Pathan’s aggression knocked over the South African top order and the spinners strangulated the lower order. Pathan had taken a pounding from Graeme Smith in the first match, but this time he snapped up three quick wickets to have South Africa reeling. AB deVilliers flicked one straight to the square leg fielder to continue his strange run in the one day games. Graeme Smith walked across his stumps in an attempt to impose himself on Pathan again but the ball rapped him on his pads, and this time the umpire agreed with the bowler. Pathan then angled one across Jacques Kallis and he tried to force it off his back foot only to be beaten by the extra bounce and got an edge to Dhoni. Ajit Agarkar maintained a wonderful line, mixing up his pace and confounding all his critics as to how he has quickly disciplined himself to become the most reliable new ball bowler for India. He bowled 6 overs for 15 runs in his opening spell.

The Bangalore pitch was an abrasive turner and one could see white spots where the fast bowlers pitched the ball. On such a gripping surface the spinners would have a say and Rahul Dravid broughtHarbhajan Singh on in the 14 ^th over. Bhajji promptly produced a ripper from around the wicket to the left handed Ashwell Prince, it pitched on leg stump and turned sharply to hit his pad in front of middle and off. The umpire gave Prince the benefit of the doubt. But, on this pitch you couldn’t keep Bhajji out of the game. Andrew Hall after edging one to the third man boundary turned an off break straight to forward short leg for Kaif to take very good reflex catch. South Africa were struggling at 57-4. Bhajji found the leading edge of Ashwell Prince almost once every over, and Mark Boucher was bewildered and lucky not to be dismissed by a doosra. Bhajji was enjoying himself and if it was a Test match, he’d probably have taken 10 wickets in the match. Prince decided to employ the sweep and was lucky that two top edges fell short of the man on the boundary.

Boucher tried to improve the scoring rate, but couldn’t get going against Harbhajan and an extremely focused Murali Karthik. Dravid was attacking throughout and after 7 wonderful overs from Harbhajan, he brought in Virendar Sehwag. Sehwag struck in his very first over as Boucher's sweep failed to connect and he was hit on the pad. He was slightly unlucky to be declared LBW as the ball hit him just outside the off stump. Justin Kemp probably has never played on a slow turner like this and began with an edge landing just short of Dravid at slip. Prince danced down the pitch and tried to hit an off spinner over mid on for the second time in the series only to sky a catch once again. This time around, Sehwag was the wicket taker. Prince has shown a lot of patience and grit in the 2 games so far and if he is a quick learner he probably will not try to hit over the top against the spin in the next three games. Meanwhile Murali Karthik was bowling maiden overs on the trot and run scoring became a chore. Murali finished his 10 over for 16 runs and bowled 4 maidens, in fact it would have been 5 maidens if not for a no ball.

Harbhajan was brought back and Kemp finally attempted a big shot only to see RP Singh run forward from the square leg boundary and diving to take a great catch. Pollock finally managed a six in Harbhajan’s last over but failed when he attempted to repeat the shot of Yuvraj Singh to have his off stump knocked back. Botha hit a couple of fine boundaries in the last over to take the score to 169 before Agarkar’s reverse swing uprooted Ntini’s middle stump.

Second innings will be posted later.