SA calm as India talk up a storm
IT IS a day of many firsts in Mohali. First Test for Virat Kohli as Indian captain at home. First visit to Mohali for South Africa in this capacity. A first taste of Test cricket on Indian soil for several players on both sides. And, of course, a first day brings with it the chance to draw first blood.
India have been speaking confidently of taking the fight to the top Test nation in world cricket, with much focus on a spinning wicket and their trio of spinners who will do a job on the tourists.
The South Africans, meanwhile, have sat back and simply waited for the talking to stop, and the business to start.
They’ve been here before, where home teams vow to make life difficult and rewrite history.
Somehow, they have always found a way. Here, in Mohali, and then Bangalore, Nagpur, and then in Delhi, they will gird their loins and look to find a way, while India look to find themselves.
“We’ve been No 1 in the world for the past three years, and we have dealt with the expectation that comes with that alright,” Hashim Amla pointed out yesterday.
“We may not have won a Test series in India before, but we have played good cricket over the past few years, and we have handled ourselves well. So, winning a series here? Why not?”
India, on the other hand, are pinning their hopes on one man. Despite straining his side, Ravi Ashwin carried his team’s bowling unit in the oneday series.
Now healed, he is expected to shoulder the burden in the Test arena.
“Over the past two to three years, he has been the go to man in Test cricket. In conditions that suit spinners, he always gets you five, six wickets,” Kohli said.
Do not be surprised if Ashwin takes the new ball when India bowl.
SQUADS
They are that eager for him to have it and keep it, just as Muttiah Muralitharan used to take over one end for a day’s play for Sri Lanka.
While Ashwin is back for the hosts, J P Duminy is certainly out for the visitors, and Morne Morkel faces a final fling with the physio this morning to ensure that his quad is up to the task.
And some task it will be. The I S Bindra Stadium curator took centre stage around the intrigued press contingent yesterday, as he explained exactly what he expected from his precious real estate.
There are footmarks– from a domestic match two weeks ago – but he insists that the pitch will be exactly what was ordered. Turn, it certainly will. Kohli looked tickled by the prospect of going in with not two, but three spinners.
When asked if South Africa would ever play three spinners in a match, Amla’s answer was revealing.
“That’s a fair question. Traditionally, our seamers have done very well for us on the sub-continent. So I like to use an old West Indian saying: if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”
And so he will stand in the dressing room, moments before his team walk out, and ask his men simply, but sternly, to go out and do what they have done on the road for the past nine years. Resists, resist, resist. And then, when India have spun themselves into a tizz, he will put out the final call.
Attack.