The Stumble at the Garden

The Indian team may have felt that they were not playing in home conditions at the Eden Gardens, Kolkatta with a pitch suited for the South African pace bowlers and a rabid crowd baying for their blood. But, they have only their poor performance to blame for the jeers from the fickle crowd. If India had done well the Kolkatta crowd would surely have been singing hosannas for Dravid and Chappell. If South Africa could chase down the Indian score without losing a wicket then the pitch can’t be all that bad, so the conspiracy theories against Dalmiya’s Cricket Association of Bengal need to be tempered down. Maybe the pitch was a little mischievous effort on the part of the groundsman, but India has to learn to win on all kinds of surfaces after all both teams play on the same pitch.

The toss played a crucial role again in these day night games. Irfan Pathan has succeeded at all batting positions and it was another brave move to send him to open the batting with Gautam Gambhir, but it failed and he was dismissed in the very first over by the canny Shaun Pollock. If Pathan had played for 5 overs at least maybe the top order wouldn’t have collapsed. Sachin tried to play out Pollock, but the ever patient Pollock got his man, and Gambhir’s loose shot was not in keeping with him being India’s only genuine Test opener. Pollock had taken 3 wickets to knock India back. Sehwag responded with a blazing counter attack as only he can. The pitch doesn’t seem to matter when he bats, and he was brutal against Hall. Hall finally pitched one wide off the stumps and Sehwag in his belligerent mood just could not resist having a swing only to get an edge to the keeper. Langeveldt prodeuced a beauty to get rid of Dravid and India were in danger of getting bowled out for an embarrassingly low total. Yuvraj has been India’s crisis man in this series and he played another back to the wall innings of great character. But, just as Kaif and Yuvraj were leading India to a decent score, the brave Johan Botha caught him LBW with a straighter ball that may have been a doosra. It was a crucial wicket by the young off spinner and it couldn’t have come at a better time. After that wicket the innings collapsed as Dhoni just wasn’t able to get the ball away and the tail crumbled. All international bowlers would have picked up on how South Africa bowled to Dhoni, short of good length and into his body, and it will be a test for Dhoni to counter it. India were bowled out for 188 and under the lights with the dew, it really wouldn’t have challenged South Africa.

Graeme Smith chose to make an emphatic statement guiding his team to a ten wicket victory. He made an incredible 134 runs out of the 189 total runs they scored in 36 overs. Andrew Hall was unbeaten on a patient 48 of 94 balls. India needed wickets right at the start to put pressure on South Africa, but that never happened. While Hall was watchful against the new ball Smith launched into both Agarkar and Pathan. Harbhajan Singh bowled a tight line but Smith never let him dominate as he jumped down the track to hit him straight down the ground for a six. Murali Karthik couldn’t contain Smith and was ineffective with the wet ball. Soon every South African boundary was being cheered by the angry crowd and in the end it was capped with jeers for Dravid and Chappell during the post match ceremony.

Rahul Dravid would have felt bitter and hurt with the reception, and he would have quickly realized that the Indian captaincy is a prickly crown to wear.