India vs South Africa, Cape Town Test: Lessons from 23-wicket Day – How not to bat in Tests

What’s the best thing to have happened to India on a day when they lost 6 wickets for zero runs? That South Africa batted worse in their first innings to be shot out for 55 and had yielded a 98-run lead on a dramatic day’s play that could prove the difference in the end. South Africa continued their woeful ways in the second, losing three wickets and trailing by 36 runs. The pessimists would identify this run-difference to India’s total from that Pink ball Test during the 2020 Australia tour, but surely India can’t implode again?

The day, however, was perfect to rant about the falling standards of Test batting. First, there was Pakistan’s shenanigans on a flat track pre-dawn in Australia before a tailender rescued them. This was followed by South Africa’s implosion in the afternoon before India sealed it by spontaneously combusting in the evening.

There was unintentional dark humour too. Soon after the innings’s turning point – KL Rahul getting possessed by a mysterious force to swipe at a Lungi Ngidi short ball to make it 153 for 5 in the first ball of the 34th over – Virat Kohli had got involved in the game.

He shepherded the incoming batsman Ravindra Jadeja, while muttering a string of instructions. Jadeja lasted 2 balls, stabbing a Ngidi bouncer to gully. Kohli then went a long way to usher in Jasprit Bumrah, once again he constantly chatted with the newcomer. Bumrah also lasted 2 balls, undone by a kicker that burst off his bat splice.

Then Kohli turned his attention to Mohammad Siraj. In four balls, he had spoken to three teammates; no one can say he was alone in the middle and lacked some company. There were no Kohli conversations to be had further as Kagiso Rabada packed him for the fifth time in Tests with a lifter from back of length that induced a hard push and an edge to the slips.

Wickets fell like nine pins! 🎳

.@mdsirajofficial & Co. were on the target this morning, snapping up all 10 #SouthAfrica wickets in just the first session of the Test!

Watch all the fall of wickets here!

Tune-in to #SAvIND 2nd Test
LIVE NOW | Star Sports Network#Cricket pic.twitter.com/viu3OGxCL8

— Star Sports (@StarSportsIndia) January 3, 2024

Until Rahul’s decision, Ngidi had a relatively ordinary day, with Shaun Pollock sighing about his lack of match practice. Everything would change in a Cape Town minute for him, for South Africa, for India, and for the fans. A game-turning triple strike in an over.

There was one telling statistic that told the story of the two batting units. Despite numerous shouts and DRS reviews, there was no lbw dismissal in the 23 wickets that fell. It spoke about the bounce on the pitch – the main devil, really – but it also showed how the techniques have withered away. And perhaps some cricketing intelligence as well.

Those numbers tell that batsmen could have been leaving the balls on a length, not easy but not improbable but made to seem impossible by the relentless plonking on the front foot without a second plan. There was some irony in their unceasing surprise at the extra bounce that kept ramming into their bat splice.

Of the two teams, only one batsman – Tony de Zorzi in the first innings – showed that balls can be left on length. Anything slightly short of good length was flying over, but modern-day cricket has taken away many nuances. Not many leave on lengths, not many have a compact backfoot play, and the results shouldn’t surprise anyone.

It was a day for Justin Langer-like leaves off lengths where he would withdraw his bat and watch the ball sail over the middle stump. Or the doggedness of a Steve Waugh or India’s current coach Rahul Dravid, showing the skill and the gumption to stand on their toes and nullify the bounce, taking a few body blows along the way.

There weren’t short balls necessarily to be cut or even to pull unless one is Ricky Ponting. It needed dare, skill, gumption, and the ability to adapt – but it wasn’t part of the ticketed fare at the ground in the shadow of a mountain.

Two Indian batsmen saved the day, Rohit Sharma and Kohli. Rohit primarily because the bowling at that point, barring Rabada, was erratic but he had the sense of mind and purpose to cash in.

The best innings belonged to Kohli who these days blends aggression without boiling over in intensity as he could do. He was relatively relaxed, smiling with Elgar, mimicking a run of a South African on the field, chatting with the umpires. He would cuss himself a couple of times, at scoring opportunities lost as he realised its importance on such a pitch.

Cricket – Second Test – South Africa v India – Newlands Cricket Ground, Cape Town, South Africa – January 3, 2024 India’s Virat Kohli in action. (REUTERS/Esa Alexander)

There was a sequence of shots in the 27th over of the innings against Rabada that captured the essence of his knock. He pounced on a slightly short ball to unfurl a glorious one-legged pull, a shot that he doesn’t play too often. He usually swat-pulls with his bottom-handed wrist taking over but this was as conventional a pull he has unfurled. A couple of balls later, he creamed a gorgeous cover drive right out of the trademark Kohli gif and soon strode forward for an immaculate defense that brought Dravid to mind.

It was all soon to change, though as a 43-run partnership in just over 10 overs ended with Rahul’s impulsive decision to counterattack after he had anaesthetised over 30 balls for 8 runs. Perhaps the pulled four in the previous over from Rabada had emboldened him. Maybe.

The younger Indians were served a harsh crash course about the physics of the bouncing ball. Yashasvi Jaiswal defended a rising ball and on Indian pitches, it would have fallen near his toes, but here the ball hit the bat harder and rolled back to fall on the stumps.

Shubman Gill, whose weight transfer has been an issue in Test cricket, was trying to press back but couldn’t do it in time. He was stuck there in an internet-loss buffering video, but the ball had rammed into his bat splice and swallowed by waiting palms.

Shreyas Iyer had already stationed himself behind the crease, close to the stumps – that isn’t the ideal back-foot play of say someone like Michael Slater who would actively go back and across, creating his own length and time to play balls. Here Iyer had nowhere to go, and he hung his bat out.

India were shot out for 36 in Adelaide a couple of years ago but that was drastically different. There, barring Kohli, no one chased a ball away from their body. Not one. Their hands didn’t betray them. Neither did their minds; not one threw away his wicket. They were brutally brushed aside by two craftsmen Pat Cummins and Josh Hazlewood at the peak of their powers, with a little bit of something beyond the mortals on the green. And it was a Pink ball.

But this was different. For a long while in the day, South Africa had just one bowler in Rabada, then Burger stepped up, before Ngidi went berserk at the delightful turn of events.

Luckily, for India though, South African batsmen were woeful in the morning, and their game didn’t really change much in the evening either as they lost three wickets for not much on the board.

• India vs South Africa Live Score, 2nd Test
• Simple and cerebral: How Mohammad Siraj took 6 for 15 to bowl out South Africa for 55
• Carnage in Cape Town as India become first team to lose six wickets without scoring in Test cricket

Much depended on the man playing his last Test innings, the man who had told his father on the eve of his remarkable match-winning knock in 2022 against the Indians: “If they want to get me out, they would have to break something in my body to drag me out of there, dad. They are not going to get me by hitting me on the body. No way in hell.”

He did seem determined to hang on in the paradise on Wednesday evening, but couldn’t hold himself from poking an angler from Mukesh Kumar to Kohli at slips. Most Indians, including Kohli, ran to congratulate him and they would also have sighed in relief. The question now swirling in the air is: how much is too much for India to chase down?

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