When India was invited to bat first by Graeme Smith on 26th December after
winning toss it seemed as if by losing toss Mahender Singh Dhoni had lost
second test match also thereby losing the series in this ongoing three test
match series.
And that was further confirmed when the whole team got out at
a low score of 205 in the delayed started match. Wet pitch and gloomy
weather had made it tough for Indian batsmen to survive and produce a big
score.
But all kudos to Zaheer Khan’s seam bowling taking three wickets and
Harbhajan Singh’s magical spell of 10 overs with four wickets that brought
India back in the game when they got South African batsmen all out at a
meagre score of 131 thereby taking a valuable 74 runs lead.
Kudos to VVS Laxman’s 96 runs knock in second innings. It helped India make228 runs thereby putting a target of 303 for South Africa.
When CaptainGraeme Smith and Alviro Petersen started aggressively in second inningsespecially the former, it seemed as if South Africa will easily win thismatch by making 303 runs.
Smith was quite adamant in punishing Zaheer Khanwhen he took 21 runs in his first 3 overs. So much so, Captain Dhoni had toremove Zaheer from bowling attack at that moment after that short but costlyspell.
Sreesanth was the man who took first wicket of the innings by getting
Smith caught out behind stumps after having a serious hot altercation
between the two.
That heated argument probably disturbed Smith’sconcentration and got him out at his 37 made in 38 balls. Two quick fall ofwickets at 82 for South Africa in shape of Petersen and Hashim Amla byHarbhajan Singh and Sreesanth respectively started a ray of hope of winningmatch for India.
Petersen’s catch was superbly picked by Cheteshwar Pujarawhereas Amla unnecessarily fiddled with an outgoing ball from Zaheer andgave a catch to Dhoni. At the end of day three South Africa were 111 forthree wickets and the match was quite open for both teams to win with Indianeeding 7 more wickets whereas South Africa requiring 192 more runs to win with two more days to go.
The match was certain to draw result in any team’sfavour.
Kallis would have been out on day three itself if Pujara had taken his
difficult but quite possible catch at a close position.
Veteran Kallis andAB de Villiers could not go a long way on day four when Kallis got out earlyin the morning caught by Sehwag on Sreesanth’s bowling. Soon de Villiers toogot out lbw out by Harbhajan Singh at his score of 33. It was come and gofor Boucher and Steyn.
It was Prince and Harris who stayed on for a smallpartnership of 27 runs worrying India for a while. Harris was clean bowledby Zaheer at his score of 7 to break that partnership.
Prince had put a lotof resistance by staying on crease for a long time. South Africa were 182for eight at that time.
Morne Morkel and Ashwell Prince produced another useful partnership of 33
runs before Ishant Sharma took his first wicket of innings by getting Morkel
caught behind stumps at his score of 20.
South Africa close to losing matchwere 215 for loss of nine wickets requiring 88 more runs to win the matchwith only one wicket in hand. Last man Tsotobe got run out at ducks andfinished innings. Prince remained not out at 39.
India won second test match played at Kingsmead Durban levelling three test
match series to 1-1. India has won by 87 runs.
