Magic Spells

Under the shadow of the Table Mountain, Bhuvneshwar Kumar ran in to bowl India’s first ball of the new year with a shiny new ball nestled inside his cocked fist. It pitched outside batsman Dean Elgar’s leg stump and swung further away from his rump, down the leg side. And even before the ball was collected by the wicketkeeper, a sizeable portion of the Newlands crowd (the Indian fans, ostensibly) groaned.

The first ball of a Test series has assumed utmost significance in the minds of cricket fans. The pundits and the purists will tell you that that single delivery which gets many firsts underway (session, day, Test and series) has the potential to set the tone for the entire tour. This whimsical idea received rule-of-thumb status when England’s Steve Harmison began the 2006-07 Ashes campaign with a ball so wayward that it was collected at second slip and signalled wide. A month and a half on, England had lost the series 5-0 and few were genuinely surprised. On Friday, in ideal Test match conditions (bright sun, large shadow, heavy breeze), Bhuvneshwar’s ball to kickstart this much-awaited, month-long Test tour of South Africa too was wide; wide enough for it to have been penalised in the shorter formats of the game.

Bhuvi’s second ball was wide as well. Down the leg side. Two balls into the series; neither bowled anywhere near the batsman. So Bhuvi decided to do just that–make Elgar play a ball. On his third attempt, India’s opening bowler hit a middle stump line, a line that forced Elgar to use his bat, and as the ball shaped away it clipped the outside edge of his willow and came to rest inside Wriddhiman Saha’s gloves. It handed India its earliest dismissal on an overseas tour in 27 years.   

After that, Bhuvi was unplayable, a fact that was soon going to dawn upon the new batsman, Hashim Amla. Amla was welcomed to the crease with two scorching deliveries that seamed inches away from his blade, leaving Amla gaping at both the bowler and the pitch that was assisting him. In his second over too, Bhuvi got the ball to move this way and that, making the other South African opener, Aiden Markram, dance that way and this. It drew oohs and aahs from the crowd, who instantly fell wholly silent off the last ball of the over when Bhuvi trapped the clueless Markram LBW.  

Two wickets in two overs became three in three when Bhuvi, in the spell of his young life, got Amla to play one on the rise, away from his body, inducing an edge to the ‘keeper. Not half an hour had passed and the hosts were in tatters, reduced to 12 for three. At this point, going by the chatter in the stands, two conclusions were drawn by everyone present at Newlands. One: South Africa’s batting wasn’t going to last the day. And two: On this bouncing, seaming wicket and up against the best pace attack in the world (four-pronged – Dale Steyn, Morne Morkel, Kagiso Rabada and Vernon Philander), the Indian batsmen were surely not going to have it easy.

These assumptions, made very early in the day, proved to be right when stumps were drawn. After bowling out South Africa for a shade under 300, India found themselves minus most of their top order at 27 for three – what with Murali Vijay (1), Shikhar Dhawan (16) and captain Virat Kohli (5) falling at the end of Day One, to Philander, Steyn and Morkel respectively. Standing in the way of a total collapse on Day Two, then, are Cheteshwar Pujara and Rohit Sharma. If India are to keep themselves in the contest, one of them, if not both, will have to approach the game the way South Africa’s AB de Villiers did.

When de Villiers walked out to bat at the fall of the second wicket, he was received by the crowd at Newlands with a standing ovation. Not too long ago, de Villiers had pondered retirement due to an ageing body and a nascent family. But here he was again, in a situation most unique to him and his fans – South Africa facing adversity in South Africa, thanks to Indian pacers. So he quickly made up his mind to do the opposite of what the departed had done. Where the others prodded and defended, AB attacked. And what a display of counterattacking cricket it turned out to be.

His first target was the lethal Bhuvi. In just his fourth over, the pacer was crunched for four boundaries – two drives through cover and two slashes over point and AB was off. Not only did his near run-a-ball innings of 65 pull South Africa out of the trenches, he ensured that his confidence was contagious. At the other end, de Villiers’s batting partner, captain Faf du Plessis, kept away the demons in the pitch as best he could and scored 62. Together they were largely responsible for South Africa’s total of 286, a total that India will do well to match.

Brief scores: Cape Town, Day One – South Africa 286 all out in 73.1 overs (AB de Villiers 65, F du Plessis 62; Bhuvneshwar 4/87, R Ashwin 2/21) versus India 28 for 3 in 11 overs (S Dhawan 16, C Pujara 5 not out; M Morkel 1/0, D Steyn 1/13, V Philander 1/13)  

About The Author

Aditya Iyer

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