Proteas take series opener in style

There are times when you wonder if South Africa ever bothers with a Plan B.

It's been quite a while since I got to watch them in action -- and what do you know, by the 6th over you find yourself going, ah right, this is how it goes, two opening bowlers will bowl the first 12 overs, then two other seamers will take over and go through to over number 24, then the fifth seamer will come in at one end and the opening bowler for a brief spell at the other end...

I mean, I can't think of too many other teams that will watch their opening bowler (in this instance, skipper Shaun Pollock) go for 21 inside 3 overs, and not contemplate a change. By the same token, not too many teams will go in with five bowlers all of the same seaming mould and all pretty much identical in pace.

That's South Africa -- they've programmed themselves to play a particular form of cricket and play it they will, come whatever. And they will win, more often than not -- because their plan A has been refined over time, and reduced to the essentials of cricket: bowl length and line around off, pack the off field with the best fielders in the contemporary game, and let nature do the rest.

But every once in a while, comes a day when the opposition plays with flair and flamboyance -- and suddenly, Plan A looks to be not so hot, and Plan B doesn't exist.

Today was one of those days. Saurav Ganguly, having gone 18 ODIs without a hundred, decided to tie a little knot in the hanky of those who had forgotten just what he could do. And the result was spectacular.

Shaun Pollock won the toss and on a pitch with some cracks around the middle and the faintest blush of grass on the surface, opted to insert. He then ran in to bowl the first ball of the innings, with the typical packed offside field that is de rigeur for South Africa and in fact for any side bowling to Ganguly -- and watched the first ball race to the off boundary.

From then on, it was all Ganguly.

Pollock, as previously mentioned, went for 21 inside of his first three overs. And with India into the 70s at the end of the 14th over, the danger signals were being hoisted.

South Africa had its chance in the 15th over, when Jacques Kallis banged one in short going round the wicket and Ganguly, looking to pull, managed only a top edge behind the keeper. Kemp, coming in off the fence with the ball seemingly covered, went into a rather flashy drive -- and flubbed the catch with India at that point on 76 and Ganguly personally on 45.

Ganguly went on to rub it in. Having got to his 50 (56 balls, 9 fours with India on 83/0 in the 17th over), he upped his game a few gears, and the Proteas were reduced to fetch-and-carry men. Thanks almost entirely to his blistering strokeplay, the entury partnership came up in the 22nd over -- and Ganguly celebrated by making room to leg and lofting Mkaya Ntini over wide long on for the first of a series of stunning sixes.

Incidentally, this makes the 14th occasion these two have taken the score to 100 and beyond without being separated -- and that puts them just below the brilliant West Indian pairing of Desmond Haynes and Gordon Greenidge (15 century partnerships) and way ahead of all contemporary pairings.

Came the 25th over, and Ganguly this time was into his patented waltz down the track, to Klusener bowling round the wicket, taking the ball from line of off to wide long on for his second six. (India, 126/0 in 25 overs). In the 26th over, it was Ntini's turn, with Ganguly taking a step down the track to smash the ball over wide midwicket for his 3rd. Over number 29, Klusener, and the Indian captain produced the shot of the innings, swivelling into a perfect pull that had the ball zooming to the midwicket boundary without, at any point in its flight, going much higher than head-height. The shot incidentally brought up the 150.

An over later, the most delicate of late cuts, again off Klusener, brought up Ganguly's 18th ODI century -- off just 109 balls, out of a team score of 162. And the real value of the Ganguly innings was underscored when, later in the same over, Tendulkar got to exactly half as many runs, his half century coming off 78 balls.

Ganguly produced his next six in the 34th over, off Kemp. Interestingly, every one of his sixes, and a few fours besides, were to the leg side where, for most of the innings, South Africa's fielding was undermanned, probably on the theory that Ganguly couldn't score runs in that area.

The drama finally ended in the 36th over when, after a first ball slash for four off Kemp, Ganguly attempted another pull but ended up hitting too early, to put the ball high in the air for Boucher to run back, chase sundry converging fielders away, and hold. The first wicket partnership had yielded a massive 193, India's highest against South Africa, and Ganguly's personal contribution was 127 off 126 balls, with 14 fours, five sixes, 33 singles and a total of 56 scoring shots in all.

At the other end, meanwhile, there was Tendulkar. Bullettin: There's nothing now the matter with his toe. In this innings, the same couldn't be said though of his timing -- the rust accumulated during his layoff showed, as his trademark shots kept finding fielders and time and again, he seemed to struggle to work the ball off the square.

To his credit, Tendulkar was quick to sense that he wasn't in top-drawer form, and opted to play cautious second fiddle to his belligerent captain. His intent was to keep his end up, work the ball for the single and let Ganguly do all the hard work.

The batsman had an early slice of luck when, in the ninth over, a slashing cut at Pollock found his thick outer edge. Kluesener at slip got a hand to it, only to grass the chance with Sachin at that point on 12 in a team score of 46.

Again, in the 40th over, Nel produced a slower ball that foxed Tendulkar into pushing too early. The bowler got his hand to the return chance, juggled, and grassed it (India 210/2 in 40 overs).

In between, Tendulkar played percentage cricket, batting well within himself, concentrating on just keeping the board ticking over and eschewing the fancy stuff while staying focussed on playing anchor. A pushed two off Kallis in the 48th over got him to his 30th ODI century (130 balls, 9 fours, 42 singles, 60 scoring shots, India 263/4). One ball later, however, an attempt to make room to a ball slanting in to leg and hit to leg ended up finding the leading edge, the ball going high for Gibbs, running backwards from the covers, to hold in nonchalant fashion. And the best feature of the Tendulkar innings was the patience with which he absorbed his own loss of timing, and focussed on staying out there.

The rest of the lineup did just enough, without ever matching the spark of their captain or the determination of the other opener. Rahul Dravid in at number three in the 36th over was a surprise. With the score on say 30/1 in the 8th, there is no one you want coming in other than the vice captain -- but with a score nearing 200 in the 36th, you look for someone who will maintain the tempo. Dravid takes time to settle, and in the process, the headlong pace of scoring at such times gets effected.

Here, he lasted just seven balls before hoiking Nel down the throat of midwicket -- but in that time, a little over two overs had gone by, and the pace had dropped.

Yuvraj Singh, in next, played one trademark lofted drive over wide long off, and a few shots of a more streaky character, before trying to get under a slower ball from Klusener. The batsman picked the change of pace, and even the right shot to deal with it -- but failed to get the distance he needed to clear Klusener on the long off fence, and was gone for 14/18.

Sehwag, like Yuvraj, came out with a hitting brief -- but with just 5 to his name, managed to club a pull straight to midwicket where Gibbs (who, on the day, easily overshadowed Jonty Rhodes in the field) timed his jump to a nicety to make a really difficult catch look extremely commonplace.

Shiv Sundar Das, bringing up the batting rear for once, and Ajit Agarkar, got India through to 279/5 -- the highest score till date at the Wanderers, beating the 266 South Africa has notched up, twice, against Pakistan and Sri Lanka respectively.

But the image that defined the end of the Indian innings was Saurav Ganguly, in the pavilion, shaking his head in seeming disgust. The non-verbal comment was justified -- a team that is inserted on a good batting strip and gets to 193/0 in the 38th over has no business making just 86 in the next 12 overs.

India in the field began well enough with both Srinath and Prasad, in their initial overs, getting the kind of swing none of the South Africans had managed. In the 4th over, Herschelle Gibbs drove too early at a Srinath inswinger without covering the movement in the air, and Ganguly at mid off grassed a low catch.

And immediately, the team's essential "Indian-ness" surfaced. How often have you seen this: In the field, things go well early and the whole team lifts itself several notches. Conversely, the least little thing goes wrong, and everything goes to pieces in a hurry. It could be as simple as an attitudinal thing -- some teams, when the going gets tough, get tougher; others lose it completely.

Venkatesh Prasad, with his slowish pace, came as manna for the Protean openers, more so because for some as yet mysterious reason he insisted on dropping too short too often. Agarkar, coming on as first change, got Kirsten on the arm first up with a bouncer, figured that was the way to go, kept dropping short, and got taken. Net result, 71/0 inside 10 overs and suddenly, the Indian total didn't look quite so daunting.

Aggression was the keynote -- of the controlled variety from Kirsten, and the in-your-face version from Gibbs. Srinath, coming back for another try in the 18th over, finally broke through when he got a delivery just outside off to hold its line. Gibbs (48 off 43 balls, South Africa 114/1 in 17.3 overs) , who had by then gotten used to waiting for the seam movement and gliding it past the keeper, pushed at this one with bat away from body -- and touched it through to give Deep Dasgupta his first international victim.

Jacques Kallis stepped up to the plate, and the batting practise -- which was what the game had by then become, with the ball doing nothing but going through in a straight line and the bowlers proving incapable of making things happen -- continued. Kirsten's innings was a case study for ODI batsmen -- a deliberate search for boundaries in the first 15 overs, and immediately the restrictions were off, a change down in gears as he moved into tip and run mode. The rate of accumulation remained the same, only the methodology changed.

Ganguly and Tendulkar, having done a fair bit with the bat, got together at the bowling crease in the middle phase -- but the best they could do was slow things down a fraction. Given the platform the openers had provided, all Kallis and Kirsten had to do was knock the ball around for singles -- and when it comes to disciplined cricket to a set plan, the South Africans have no equals.

An item of curiosity would obviously be Kumble, coming back after a little over a year in the cold. Medical bullettin number two: Kumble's shoulder seemed fine enough -- but if you've spent 12 months and more accumulating rust, you don't, for your comeback game, really want to bowl on a batting beauty. There was occasional turn on view -- but the Kumble forte, accuracy of line, length and direction, were missing.

At 177/1 at the end of 30 overs, the Proteas were on velvet -- just 103 to get, 20 overs to get them in, and nary a threat in sight. Shortly thereafter, Kirsten got to his hundred -- a perfectly paced innings off 114 balls, marked by a perfect understanding of which gear to use when.

All of which meant the match was virtually over at that point -- and only the questions remained.

Or rather, just one question, with a few subsidiaries: What, in hindsight, could India have done?

For starters, it could have got its thinking cap on at the selection stage, and figured that picking a top quality off spinner is any day better than picking a seamer for the sake of picking one. Ever since preparations for this tour began, the Indians have been going, 'Ah, South Africa, seaming wickets, we need lots of seam bowlers.'

So they picked Nehra, and Zahir, and Srinath. Fair enough. But by the time the first two fell, the mindset had been cast in stone -- and as soon as one dropped out through injury, another was picked. At no point did anyone stop to think that picking any seamer wouldn't do -- on seaming tracks, you need quality seamers, ones with pace and variety and control and stamina. And if your cupboard is bare of those, then you don't pick a name out of the hat for the heck of it.

Secondly, in the field the Indians appeared to have forgotten the lessons learnt from the recent past -- and two of those lessons were named Yuvraj Singh, and Virendra Sehwag. In Sri Lanka, time and again the Lankan openers got off to good starts -- and it would be one or the other of those part-time off-spinners who would then come on (in Yuvraj's case, inside of the first 15 overs), check the run rate, and help turn the pressure back on.

There is no point in having resources, if you don't utilise them.

To get back to the close of the game, Agarkar in a comeback spell produced in the 37th over a ball darting back in off the seam. Kallis (39/56 in a team score of 207/2) went back shaping to cut, the ball cut back in and crashed into the stumps. Srinath maintained the artifical excitement with a nicely disguised slower ball that tempted Jonty Rhodes to attempt an off-to-leg heave, only to play all over it and lose middle stump (Rhodes 20/19, 249/3 in the 42nd over).

To cut a long story short, South Africa sealed the win with wickets, and overs to spare. And India went back into the hut... to, hopefully, rethink their team selection, and assorted strategies.

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