Weekend Argus (Saturday Edition)
Proteas outdone by India in every way
It’s not hard to mistake the men in blue caps for world’s No 1 Test side
YESTERDAY may well have been the Proteas’ worst day in Test cricket since Friday, July 28, 2006. On that day, Mahela Jayawardene and Kumar Sangakkara made them chase 357 runs of leather as Sri Lanka batted a shell-shocked South Africa out of the contest.
There were newbies abound, and they were startled by the brutality and the relentlessness of the class that confronted them. South Africa was an emerging side, with several players like Dale Steyn, AB de Villiers and Hashim Amla still finding their international feet.
It was a world away from the records, the runs and the rampant spells that those three have enjoyed around the world since then. And yet, for most of Friday, December 4, 2015, the Proteas looked like a shadow of the side that, until last week, hadn’t tasted defeat away from home in nine years.
They were spineless, and they were listless. The manner in which they started the day, with a new ball and boundary riders, appeared mindless. Worse still, by the end of a day which saw them allow India to stretch out to 334, before rolling over for 121, their abilities against India’s spin trio appeared feckless.
The general notion was that, on a semi-normal track, the Proteas would be able to at least joust with India, deep into the fourth or even the fifth day, in a contest of bat and ball. But as things stand, the tourists look like they have saved their heaviest defeat for last.
India did their bit as Ajinkya Rahane delivered the first century of the series, one which got better and better with time. The lofted coverdrive that he eased Dean Elgar over the ring with was buttery brilliance, while his back-foot play was immaculate. Yes, he got dropped but he took that small fortune and turned it into a treasured ton.
At the other end, Ravichandran Ashwin carved out a responsible fifty, bereft of panic but rather studded with snippets of timing and temperament. India’s No 9 showed the Proteas top-order and the world that there were no demons on this track, all the while chomping at the bit to have a go at them with the ball.
The chasm between India and South Africa was supposedly not that great, but it has suddenly and astoundingly appeared vast – and not on the side that the cricket world assumed. India have outdone South Africa by every measure, and any man who walked into a cricket ground for the first time at the Feroz Shah Kotla Stadium yesterday would have been spot on to assume that the No 1 side was in blue caps and not green.
The Proteas, in getting rolled out for 121, confirmed India’s insistence that they would have defeated them anywhere on current form. There is no hiding from this, not for a team that has prided itself on an ability to scrap and survive when they couldn’t thrill and thrive.
Just two men breached 20; De Villiers, who held on as long as he could for 42, and Temba Bavuma (22), who looked competent in an unfamiliar role at the top of the order. For a brief while, when he and Elgar chalked up the highest opening stand of the series for South Africa, it looked as if the typical tide had turned.
Alas, the waves had only gone back to sea to regather as a tsunami, one which hit most destructively after tea as nine visiting wickets were swept away by a combination of speed, spin and swing. For all of the Proteas’ bumbling, India’s brilliance yesterday cannot be overstated.
They batted with purpose, they caught surely, and they bowled triumphantly. Ravindra Jadeja (5/30) was the star this time, but Ashwin (2/26), Ishant Sharma (2/32) also played a part, while Umesh Yadav’s scorcher that rearranged JP Duminy’s furniture provided the image of the day.
India were all over South Africa, yesterday and the tourists, incredibly, seemed incapable of fighting them off. India could have just as easily enforced the follow-on, and finished their sorry visitors off in that oft- mentioned three days. Surely, a buffer of 213 is already much too much? But they will bat on and look to pile on the agony.
It is said that teams with little to play for, after a long trip, can sometimes play with “one foot on the plane”. Here yester- day, the team formerly recognised as the best Test outfit in the world played as if they had already breezed past customs at OR Tambo International, with little to declare, save for the T20 and ODI series scalps, won so long ago. It is hard to imagine they were part of the same trip.