Proteas will look to the heavens in hope for fit Steyn

All eyes will be on fast bowler making cut for Test

THERE were bangs galore in Bangalore yesterday because of Diwali, which even in daylight hours was marked by exploding crackers that rent the air randomly all over this rackety city.

And, for the third straight day, there was rain.

How the latter did not soak the fuses and thus deaden the din was anyone’s guess. Divine intervention, perhaps.

SA might need something like it to get Dale Steyn onto the park on Saturday. A groin strain took him out of the attack for India’s second innings in the first Test in Mohali and, spinners’ pitch or not, the visitors missed his presence.

Steyn comes running down a mountain of achievement at batsmen, but he is more than a player in this SA team. Not unlike A B de Villiers or Hashim Amla, he reminds his comrades who they are as a band of men and how they have reached heights they might never have scaled without leaning on giants like him.

So his fitness test, scheduled for today during SA’s first training session since Monday, will be among the most closely watched events of this tour.

If Steyn doesn’t make it, Morne Morkel seems over his quadriceps problem and would make a like-forlike but not seamless seamers’ swap.

The other side of that coin is the expected return of J P Duminy from his hand injury, probably at the expense of Simon Harmer.

Since the Mohali match ended on Saturday, more than two days early, the South Africans have taken to the