Great comeback to level the series

The second consecutive test match of this series finished in 3 days. At Ahmedabad, India lost; today at Kanpur, we won. It was a concerted effort, with contributions from everyone. One knew it was probably going to be a special day for India right in the morning, because Sreesanth and Ishant added 37 more runs to extend the first innings lead to 60 very valuable runs. Several snicks went past slip fielders, and some deliveries came dangerously close to the stumps but did no damage.

The frustration of the South Africans was quite visible on their faces, and surely must have carried on into their second innings. Bhajji was introduced fairly early and he took full advantage of the pitch,  ending up as “Man of the Series”  for his haul of 22 or so wickets. As I said in my blog yesterday, if India got the top 4 wickets cheaply, wewould be in with a chance. Graeme Smith displayed his usual determination, and scored was top scorer with 35. But with South Africa reduced to 72 for 4 (effectively, they were 12 for 4), it was never going to be easy. Wickets fell regularly at one end, with only Ashwell Prince unbeaten on 22, off 87 balls. Dhoni rung in some very effective bowling changes, proving yet again that his cricketing instincts are very strong. When he found that Chawla was not very effective, he reposed trust in Sehwag, who eneded the day with 3 wickets for only 12 runs.

The target of 60 to win was not going to be enough (although India had collapsed to 76 all out in the previous test at Ahmedabad). Sehwag seemed to be in a hurry to finish the match inside 10 overs, and scored a quickfire 22 runs in 12 balls before perishing to hit Harris for a third consecutive boundary (or was it a six? I don’t quite recall). Jaffer scored 10 of 11 balls and was out lbw to Morkel. That set the stage for Ganguly (who came in at No. 3) and Dravid (who came on to the field when Jaffer was out) to score the remaining 30 or so runs needed for victory. After many matches, Dravid’s strike rate was a decent 62 (it was even higher than Saurav’s 46) and his 18 runs included 4 boundaries.

India thus retain their No. 2 spot in the ICC rankings (they would have ceded their spot to South Africa had they lost the series).

I guess the stage now shifts to the IPL, which makes its debut in a few days. The composition of the IPL teams makes for stange bed-fellows. Dravid might soon find himself devising strategies and game-plans with Kallis and Boucher; these two South Africans will find themselves playing against their skipper Graeme Smith. Of course, all this will happen only after the first few games have finished, for the news is that the South Africans will fly back home to play in their domestic tournament, before returning to India for the IPL games after 2 weeks. Simialrly, Sachin and Symonds wil both have to collaborate to plot the downfall of their adversaries.