CAPE TOWN: The furore that collectively raised the decibel levels at the Newlands in the 22nd over of India’s innings was higher than any heard here over the last four days. It came on the fourth ball, to be precise.
Vernon Philander, that hurtful Capetonian, sly with his swing, getting to move the ball away and in, trapped
Virat Kohli.
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Familiar batting woes jolt India out of Cape Town dreamThe Indian skipper was trying to settle down. A brisk 28, inclusive of four boundaries that appeared to have come in a 50-over mode, had begun to spell his intent. He had to remain disruptive in order to reinvent and Kohli was doing just that.
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Losing wickets in a heap cost us the game: Virat KohliThe very capricious medium-pacer just wouldn’t appreciate the effort. Having sent down the first three deliveries which drifted away from the batsman, Philander managed to get the fourth one back in. Kohli, trying to flick it around his pads, missed the line. Celebrations began even before the India captain asked for a referral - hoping against hope that the ball may have been going down leg side. It was hitting the leg stump.
The visitors got reduced to 71-4. South Africa knew the Test was all but theirs. Eventually, thanks to a bit of sting in the Indian tail, they won by 72 runs. India seemed to learn less from the first innings debacle while the South African attack turned more lethal on a wicket that kept behaving in a dicey manner. They looked bent on playing every ball, barring the occasional ‘well left…’ that cost them a great deal.
‘Well left…’ seem like words from another time on a cricket field these days. ‘Well played…’ has overcrowded that space. Call it the T20 syndrome, but the urge to hang the bat out in the air without allowing the body and feet to move in line with those hands has remained a recurring worry.
Seven of the eleven batsmen, in the second innings, were either caught behind or in the slips. It was no different from the first innings when exactly seven batsmen had been dismissed just the same way.
South Africa could possibly be guilty of the same, considering Indian wicketkeeper
Wriddhiman Saha took 10 catches in this game, becoming the fifth to do so. Only that in doing what they did, South Africa did manage to put more runs on board.
Ravichandran Ashwin turned out to be the highest scorer in India’s second stint, a very cautious 37 - that also included some of those rare ‘well left(s)…’ prolonging the visitors’ stay at the crease. In chasing 208 for victory, the struggling Indian line-up - one that gave way to many a debate the moment the eleven was announced - wrapped up for 135 runs. Of that 135, six batsman managed to get past 10 runs, one stopping at 10, two at 13, and one at 16.
Faf du Plessis, the South African skipper, admitted that it was a close Test match, brought closer by a day’s play washed away by rain. Kohli echoed that line. Barring the first innings half-centuries from AB de Villiers and du Plessis, followed by Hardik Pandya’s 93 in India’s first stint, no other batsman managed to cross the 50-run mark.
Yet, as time passes by in this series, the Indian camp will remind themselves time and again of the nature of dismissals that cost them dearly. Barring Bhuvneshwar’s first day spell, Pandya’s all-round show and Bumrah’s Monday burst, none of the others from the Team India camp stood up to the occasion.