Test is about dead in the water

CROSSING a street is a petrifying prospect for a certain class of foreigner in Bangalore.

Add rain to the equation and you might as well be walking a chewing gum tightrope stretched over a cluster of hornets’ nests.

Will the man staring at a woman searching for a few square centimetres of intact pavement to step onto – the same man who is driving a rapidly approaching tuk-tuk – see you through his vehicle’s rain-streaked windscreen?

The SA squad are not part of the class of foreigner who has to worry about these things. Only luxury buses and police escorts will do for them.

Yesterday they didn’t have to bother with even that, what with the third day’s play in the second Test abandoned at the scheduled lunch break – or before both teams had seen fit to arrive at the M Chinnaswamy stadium – because of the rain that has soaked the city since SA arrived a week ago.

Sunday’s play suffered the same fate, and more rain has been forecast for today. Another splash is due tomorrow.

If play resumes India will be 80 without loss in reply to SA’s first innings of 214. As a contest the second Test is dead in the water.

The third Test is set for Nagpur on November 29. There is time, then, for SA to understand how they have gone from being the first side touring India to advance within sight of victory in rubbers in all three formats on a single tour to, at 0-1 down, veering towards their only loss in their last 15 away Test series.

What with 27 of the 30 wickets SA have lost in the series falling to India’s spinners, the elephant in the temple is obvious.

And, as the home side lost 15 of their 20 wickets to SA’s spinners in the first Test in Mohali, advice on how to play the slow stuff has come from many who have wielded a bat at a decent level in these parts.

“Playing spin is all about your mind-set,” former Test batsman Gautam Gambhir said. “If your mind-set is to survive all the time, you will not survive.”

That will work for facing Ravichandran Ashwin, but not for a certain class of foreigner trying to cross the street in Bangalore.