Revisiting Nagpur

By CAM

Outplayed! Outclassed!! When you think of a clash between the teams ranked 1^st and 2^nd in the ICC test cricket rankings, one would have expected a much closer contest than what we witnessed in Nagpur. To lose by an innings, that too, in a game played on home turf was truly hard to accept for many.

Kudos to South Africa!! It was an incredible performance in all three departments of the game.

A hundred by Sehwag in the first innings and one by Tendulkar in the second provided the much needed silver lining around some extremely poor display of batting. Once must accept however, that Dale Steyn’s performance was far from an ordinary one. But for Badri’s soft dismissal, he truly earned his 7 wickets in the first innings confirming his position as the best bowler in test cricket today. And by the way, they did get 20 wickets!! Well, then again, this is South Africa, not Bangladesh.

The long partnership between Kallis and Amla revealed the ineffectiveness of the Indian bowling attack. It was not until the game was well into day three that the Indian bowlers started to give the South African batsman something to think about. In the end, the efforts of a few were far from enough to give the Indians any fighting chance.

Indian cricket fans were certainly irate - “What were the selectors thinking?”

Another fan – “Why can’t a country of 1.2 Billion people produce another DRAVID or LAXMAN?”

So clear was the absence of Dravid, Laxman, and Yuvraj that one begins to speculate. What would have been the outcome of this test if Shahadat had not bowled that bouncer in Dhaka? Well, that is cricket!! We must move on. Now more than ever before did the importance of bench strength, or should I say the lack of it, in the Indian team revealed itself. It would seem that the makeup of the Indian team is too dependent on the senior trio, a situation that the Aussies found themselves in during Hayden and Gilchrist days.

Now we move on to Eden Gardens, Kolkata. The ICC ranking is at stake. The much awaited return of Laxman (possibly) to the side will be a huge help. The wise inclusion of Suresh Raina and Dinesh Karthik will hopefully give the Indian team a platform to show their true mettle. In the end, with a team like South Africa, India has to be firing on all cylinders and in all departments (batting, bowling, and fielding), to even stand a chance of leveling the series.