Cape Town test : Thoughts on Day 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5

[kabira]

Thoughts on Day 1 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Another rain curtailed first day of the series. All the first days have been curtailed. I should give credit to our bowlers. When you bowl at durban which has bounce and carry...and then come back to Newlands, which is suppose to be slower pitch, you have to pitch the ball further up. And thats what exactly they did. Ishant was pitching the bowl well up..If I remember they did not even attempt single shot pitch delivery in first hour. There are days where you bowl **** and take wickets. And there are days where you bowl well and have nothing to show up. This was one of those days. Kallis look rock solid so full credit to him. We were continuously beating the bat. How many times did Zaheer's away going delivery beat Amla? With bit of more luck we can get them under 320. If we can't wicket in first hour, we will be in trouble. So first hour is important. I would guess Dhoni will start with Bhajji and Ishant and try SS and Zaheer with new ball.

[Manny_Pacquiao]

i am glad there was a rain delay, because that means i wont have to stay up really f'in late to watch the match. early starts FTW i agree with u completely, i thought our guys bowled alright without much luck, although not with the same intensity at durban. the rain delay came at the worst time, because indian bowlers were all over SA and if not for the interruption i reckon they would have taken at least a couple more wickets. that said, SA are in the driving seat after batting well and if they can score 400, they will be in a very strong position because i dont think this pitch is gonna flatten out the way all the commentators suggest. the good thing is that this pitch is bowler friendly with some nice carry, swing but slower bounce. india will only be an early wicket or two away from taking down SA. the bowlers need to pitch the ball up and let it swing, because the short balls that did the job at durban wont work here. finally, dhoni's tactics after tea were bizarre. harbhajan wasnt that effective but he kept using him at one end. its so much easier to build pressure with two seamers than one spinner-one seamer.

[gsivak]

Zaheer and co need to get Kallis out asap. If that guy hangs around for another half a day, India will be under major pressure.

[Fontaine]

i am glad there was a rain delay, because that means i wont have to stay up really f'in late to watch the match. early starts FTW i agree with u completely, i thought our guys bowled alright without much luck, although not with the same intensity at durban. the rain delay came at the worst time, because indian bowlers were all over SA and if not for the interruption i reckon they would have taken at least a couple more wickets. that said, SA are in the driving seat after batting well and if they can score 400, they will be in a very strong position because i dont think this pitch is gonna flatten out the way all the commentators suggest. the good thing is that this pitch is bowler friendly with some nice carry, swing but slower bounce. india will only be an early wicket or two away from taking down SA. the bowlers need to pitch the ball up and let it swing, because the short balls that did the job at durban wont work here. finally, dhoni's tactics after tea were bizarre. harbhajan wasnt that effective but he kept using him at one end. its so much easier to build pressure with two seamers than one spinner-one seamer.

I think India were behind the over rate so they had to play spin from one end.

[Manny_Pacquiao]

damn, i didnt realise that.

[Laaloo]

I think India were behind the over rate so they had to play spin from one end.

Nah. ZAK already had bowled 15 overs before that last break I think. So Dhoni was just rotating the fast bowlers with Harbhajan at the other end. I didn't see most of his bowling but I'm pretty sure he was back to bowling darts on the leg side.

[rkt.india]

Zaheer was the worst of the seamer today...looked unfit...didnt even touching 130....bowled a few good overs but was not consistent enough at that pace..if u are not consistent you are not gonna get many wickets...Sreesanth too was slow, sometimes bowled at collingwood's pace....sometimes bowled well but pace let him down.., This was a low wicket, batsmen had enough time to adjust if you were that slow...they needed to put a bit more effort and hit the deck harder...Ishant was consistently quicker..hitting the deck well and getting in and outward movement after pitching..but he was guilty of bowling too wide and didnt make the batsmen play enough initially..then he adjusted and bowled a good spell to Kallis and ABDV...was unlucky didnt get much rewards.... All in all, Ishant exceeded my expectations as i didnt expect much from him, he could have been left out too and Sreesanth and Zaheer were let downs...this was a tailor made pitch for them if they had bowled a bit quicker and consistently on fourth stump...disappointing day it was at the end....

[Chandan]

Cape Town test : Thoughts on Day 2. Just read Prem Panicker's post: Statistically speaking, Dale Steyn has dismissed Viru Sehwag more often than any other bowler in the business. He has done that by implementing to perfection a simple plan — prey on the Indian opener’s impetuosity by keeping the ball outside off, to varying degrees, and challenging Sehwag to go after him. Steyn can now legitimately claim the Indian opener as his bunny. Or can he? The best comment on Sehwag I’ve seen in a long time came from my friend Siddarth Vaidyanathan (@sidvee on Twitter — are you following him yet?): sidveeSehwag is his own bunny 03 Jan 2011 from TweetDeck With Sehwag falling to his own headlong momentum and Rahul Dravid, in his 150th Test, continuing his nightmare run (cricketers say it is almost axiomatic that when you are going through a bad patch, everything that could possibly go wrong, will — Dravid on this tour is proving to be the perfect example), there was the distinct possibility that India would fall to its own demons. What saved the side its collective blushes was some gritty batting by Gambhir and Tendulkar, some fairly ordinary catching by the Proteas, and a moment of generosity from the umpires who decided to give Tendulkar ‘benefit of doubt’ against Harris. While on that last, I wonder how long it will take the South African media to speculate on whether the umpire was drunk the night before — as it did famously after the Durban Test. That was easily the WTF moment of last year — a defeat on the back of a spectacular first innings collapse (during which the umpires, please note, were not drunk — SA’s intoxication with its own success was solely responsible for the pathetic 131 it put up), and media reports immediately following that the umpire in question was seen inebriated the night before the Test began. Rather strange case to make, that intoxication led to bad decisions five days later — surely the longest lasting hangover in history. What made it funnier still, in a WTF kind of way, was the build up — players were supposed to have seen the drunk umpire, the manager was supposed to be filing a complaint, and then after all the hoo-haa, turned out no complaint was ever filed. In any case, if the team manager had heard of this incident before the Test started, surely it was the act of a responsible official to bring it to the ICC’s notice at once, and not after the result of the game was known? Back to the cricket. The pitch has been easing out steadily since around the third session of day one (which makes Sreesanth’s early morning heroics of day two all the more commendable); if the weather holds, day three should be the best batting day of this Newlands encounter. Against that, Steyn and Morkel showed the advantage of an extra yard or ten of pace on a benign wicket, repeatedly hustling Gambhir in particular with bounce at pace. On this track, that is just about the only tactic South Africa has at its disposal, so today’s play should see more of the same. The real danger, though, comes from Tsotsobe, the “holding” seamer who has been the recipient of Indian generosity in previous matches. The batsmen seem so focussed on negating Steyn, and Morkel to an extent, that they tend to relax against the third seamer — who on the day saw two good edges go to waste (when Prince failed to go for a catch off a Tendulkar edge, and when de Villiers of all people dropped Gambhir towards close of play). The other possible problem — and this is a peculiarly Tendulkar problem — comes from Paul Harris. Sachin has in this knock shown a tendency to pre-judge how he will play the spinner — a big stride forward, bat religiously in front of pad, angled to work the ball to leg through the close cordon. The risk is that he will miss, and be LBW — and but for the umpire’s largesse, that is how he should have perished late yesterday evening. At the end of day two, the game is deadlocked — and on balance, India is better placed to prise it open. South Africa has a problem — it will have to bowl this morning with a ball already 50 overs old, on a pitch becoming increasingly good for batting. Its best chance is to let Steyn and Morkel bowl flat out — but there is a limit to how many overs the two quicks can bowl at a time. Smith has to conserve their energies by using Tsotsobe and Harris for extended periods (and he has no Kallis to fall back on). All things considered, advantage marginally India: lose wickets early and the tourists are back on the back foot; ride out the early spurt from the Proteas quicks, and Sachin, Gambhir, Laxman, Pujara and Dhoni can look to milk the two lesser bowlers, with a view to taking the lead well before play ends today. Sorely tempted to borrow from Ravi Shastri’s playbook and say “Today is going to be critical” — but then, I don’t recall any Test where every day wasn’t critical (unless India is playing Sri Lanka on a featherbed), do you? --------------------------------------------------------------- But even I feel that India put the shutter down a bit too early because of which we finished some 30 runs short of what we should have. What are your views? As for that LBW decision, that was a marginal one but Sachin should guard even against that.

[vamos_rafa]

I think we played a bit too slowly in the last hour. But it was tense out there, very tense. The SAffers were going all out with their sledging and all and one could sense the tension. But full marks to Gambhir and Tendulkar to have slugged it out. As for the LBW decision, it was marginal for sure. Even Kallis survived a one like that but the disturbing thing is that no1 points it out. It's only the decisions that are in our favour that are pointed out.

[saneindian]

That LBW shout was margianl as were a few lbw shouts vs Kallis on day 1 and even yesterday. On our batsmen going slow in the last hour and a half, credit should be given to Steyn and Morkel and even Harris. Morkeland Steyn bowled brilliant 2nd spells, found rhythm and extracted lot of pace and bounce from the wicket while Harris bowled to his field. In the end, with some luck, Sachin and Gauti survived that spell and to their credit came out undefeated. The rewards of that patience will come today morning when they come out to bat. Expect run scoring rate to be better today like what we saw with the old ball when match started on day 2. A lot of sunshine is predicted for the day and that should make batting easier. So all in all, its looking good for us. But we could have done without those 80 runs for the last 2 wickets. The last wicket partnership was so frustrating.

[Sooda]

Sehwag is his own bunny. Thats well said and pretty much the concl people arrived at in the Sehwag is a STB thread. Slowed down alot particularly given the +ve start to the partnership...going a 3.5ish RPO for a while

[kabira]

actually the Kallis one was hitting the leg whereas sachin it was clipping the leg stump just. Both were not bad decision at all..50-50 both.

[saneindian]

Sehwag has played 10 tests vs SA with Steyn in the team. 5 tests in SA, 5 in India. In India, in 8 innings, Sehwag has 662 runs@83 with a strike rate of 95 including 3 100s. In SA, in 9 innings, Sehwag has 214 runs@23 with a strike rate of 78 including just 1 50. Fair to say that on batting friendly wickets, Sehwag has had the upper hand while on bowler friendly tracks, Steyn has had more success. Bunny of Steyn, really?

[jf1gp_1]

i thought it was a perfect day of test cricket, we saw great spells from bowlers of both the sides along with determined batting. 3rd day of a test match and neither team can claim they are in control. Regarding sehwag only he knows shape his shoulder is in so if the injury isnt a big factor then for now has figured out a way to keep him quiet and full credit to them.

[Manny_Pacquiao]

Cape Town test : Thoughts on Day 1, 2 and 3 WTF are ppl complaining about the tendulkar lbw??!! :haha: even with UDRS in place, that was NOT OUT. 3rd ump would have seen that less than half the bal was hitting leg stump, so the not out decision would have stood the haters need ot keep looking for xcuses, they will need to dig real deep after india takes home this test series trophy B->

[fineleg]

Atrocious running and a "Modern" Captaincy moment on Day-2 Atrocious running and a modern captaincy moment The leave While waiting for his turn to bat, Morne Morkel must have seen a lot of well-judged but exaggerated leaves from Jacques Kallis. When he came out to bat, he went after the second ball he faced, and was duly beaten by Zaheer Khan. The Kallis moment came immediately. As he realised he had been beaten, he completed the follow through, shouldering arms in as exaggerated a fashion as Kallis'. Good recovery, but the replay on the big screen called his bluff. The running Gautam Gambhir and Rahul Dravid together was a run out waiting to happen. First Gambhir called Dravid for a run and sent him back; the latter was saved only by a missed direct-hit from substitute fielder JP Duminy. In the next over, Dravid hit square and set off, only to see - from half way down the wicket - that Gambhir hadn't moved. There was a single in there, but also it was Gambhir's call, so he could be given the benefit of the doubt here. Soon, though, Dravid made the final error, going for a run off a dropped catch. He had judged the single well, but took it too easy, and AB de Villiers' flashy work to hit the stumps direct caught him short. Lonwabo Tsotsobe's reaction was priceless. He was the bowler who had that wicket taken away from him, and was standing next to the stumps with hand on hips, but in an instant that emotion changed to joy as he knew before the third umpire that de Villiers had caught Dravid short. The hold If Zaheer Khan has been toying around with Graeme Smith, Dale Steyn has been having a pretty successful time against the opposition opener. Virender Sehwag showed remarkable restraint against the danger man, even playing out back-to-back maidens, but Steyn managed to make it seven Sehwag wickets out of the 15 innings he has bowled against him in. In this series, Steyn has got Sehwag in all three first innings, and that has had a big impact. However, the contest has been full of action from both sides: to go with the seven dismissals, 203 runs have come off the 234 balls that Sehwag has faced against Steyn. Sehwag's got 155 of those runs in India, off 156 balls, at an average of 51.67, while in South Africa, Steyn's been the boss, dismissing him four times for 48 runs. The modern captaincy moment This was so expected it didn't surprise anybody. Even though India had all the momentum with four wickets for 21 runs to reduce South Africa to 283 for 8, as a modern-day captain does, MS Dhoni spread the fields for Jacques Kallis, who enjoyed the state of affairs. He manoeuvred the strike well, giving India only a ball or two at the tailenders for most of the overs. And once India started deflating, Kallis started going for boundaries off the last two balls when the fields would come up. The last two wickets added 79, which could yet prove to be the difference in the final analysis. The extra over that didn't work In Durban, as India got off to a wicket-less start in the first 10 overs, Steyn pleaded with the captain for an extra over. He got that extra over, which brought him Sehwag's wicket, which got him another over, which in turn got him another wicket. Today, with Paul Harris ready to bowl the 16th over of India's innings, Steyn got himself an extra over. This time, though, the extra over went for six runs, including a lovely whip from Sachin Tendulkar, his first boundary. The interruption It was not clear whether he didn't like the way Sachin Tendulkar and Gautam Gambhir were batting, but in the 35th over of India's innings, a man chose to streak, skilfully dodging the security guards, who frankly seemed athletically inferior to him. As he passed Duminy at backward square leg, the fielder - perhaps in self-defence - made a mock charge towards the streaker. That hurried the man's departure off the field, but he ran himself pretty hard into the fence, a moment Paul Harris, standing in the slips, particularly enjoyed, expressing his pleasure by clapping and laughing. The almost naked man had his moment in the Cape Town sun, but won't quite enjoy what the authorities might do to him. SAUCE: http://www.espncricinfo.com/south-africa-v-india-2010/content/story/495204.html

[Sid]

I said yesterday in the match thread ,this modern day thinking of not wanting to get set batsman out and letting him take easy singles is a nonsense strategy which backfires most of the times and it backfired yesterday as well

[kabira]

^ok whatever you say makes sense. But that idea has simple logic...its easier to get tailender out then the proper batsman. So why give away boundaries to set batsman...and this approach does not work because you are able to dislodge tailender...so how will you dislodge set batsman??

[akshayxyz]

Yes, even I find it difficult to digest how one can get that last wicket w/o attacking both ends.

[Sid]

^ok whatever you say makes sense. But that idea has simple logic...its easier to get tailender out then the proper batsman. So why give away boundaries to set batsman...and this approach does not work because you are able to dislodge tailender...so how will you dislodge set batsman??

This is where captains go wrong most of the tailenders know how to stuck around nowadays and we have seen various examples of tailenders prospering with the bat in recent past and guess what SET BATSMAN was out eventually not the tailender :giggle: