Pace bowlers have a field day.
Fast bowlers had a great week at the office this week as serious Test match cricket returned to the center stage. After some time of the limited over variety it was back to the grind of the traditional format.
On their home turf , South Africa and Australia faced India and Pakistan respectively. Both the matches started on Boxing day, and finished early, one in three days and the other in four. While the Aussies beat Pakistan after a few tense moments, South Africa came home in a canter.
South Africa-India : Centurion Park
There was nothing new about the ground except that it sports a new name SuperSport Park. The pitch was lively as ever and it was as always a pacer’s patch. Choosing to bat first was an easy decision for Bavuma. He would have counted on his pace bowlers to extract help from the conditions. The SA attack led by Kagiso Rabada did not disappoint. In the space of 67 overs on the first day they had India on the mat.
Rabada and Nandre Burger on his debut, reduced India to 24 for 3 by the 11th over. Rohit Sharma seemed to be in T20 mode as he tried to pull a short ball from Rabada and fell to an outfield catch. Jaiswal played the wrong line on the drive and nicked one and Shubham Gill fended off a sharp short ball to the wicketkeeper.
There was no respite as the pace bowlers bowled to their lines extracting bounce and movement from the first day pitch. A stubborn display from KL Rahul that helped India to get beyond 200. Rahul played at a brisk pace to collect 101 runs with 14 fours and four sixes, before Burger bowled him and wound up the Indian innings.
Elgar bats South Africa in a big lead.
The South Africa reply was of a different nature. While they did lose their first wicket with just 11 runs on board, they were able to stitch partnerships together. The Indian pace attack did look sharp but did very little to trouble the South Africans.
It was Dean Elgar’s mammoth 185 which laid the base for 408 runs that they scored. Elgar , dour, steady and effective kept an end going . With the help of fifties from David Bedingham and Marco Jansen, South Africa had reached a point of strength, leading by 163 runs. A lead enough to put pressure on the Indian lineup.
India collapses against pace.
If the first innings was a poor display, the second one was abject. On a third day pitch, the pacers managed to swing the ball around exposing a very familiar failing of Indian batters on foreign pitches. Virat Kohli played a lone hand scoring 76 out of a dismal 131 India managed. Only Shubhnam Gill with 26 managed to get into double figures. Rabada, Jansen and Burger shared the wickets as India once again failed to put up a fight on the sharp tracks in South Africa.
While Elgar with his superb display was adjudged the man of the match, it was Nandre Burger who caught the eye. Burger emergence demonstrates the ability of the South African’s system to produce nippy and incisive fact bowlers. It bodes well for the near future and alongside Rabada and Jansen, he will surely benefit and continue to prosper.
As for the Indians for the umpteenth time it is back to the drawing board. It is a familiar malady and one that seems to have very few prescriptions for recovery. A sustained focus and overdose of the limited-over variety cricket has its pitfalls and they are now showing up again.
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