South African bowler Marco Jansen celebrates with teammates (ANI Photo) Guwahati: When South Africa were batting, Kuldeep Yadav said the pitch felt like a “road”. In less than 24 hours, India discovered bumps and sharp turns, hitherto unforeseeable, on the same ‘road’ at the Assam Cricket Association ground in Barsapara. Due to the stumps on Day 3, the hosts were indeed out of the way to salvage the two-Test series against South Africa.
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India’s batting horror show – one of the worst in recent memory – was facilitated by 6ft 8 Marco Jansen, a familiar face on the IPL circuit. He produced a steep bounce that no Indian pacer had done and with the recklessness of the top order, led by captain Rishabh Pant, the Indian batting collapsed like a deck of cards. From 95-1 at one stage with half an hour to go in the first break, India were reduced to 122-7 either side of tea at 11 am. Washington Sundar (48) and Kuldeep Yadav (19) defied 35 overs but offie Simon Harmer (3-43) got the Tamil Nadu all-rounder with one to leave him. Jansen (6-48) polished off the rest of the tail and a 288-run lead all but sealed the fate of the game. With South Africa reaching 26-0 by the end of the match after opting not to push on, India can only hope for a draw. But it will take a miracle. Jansen, ahead of today’s game, was seen chatting with Dale Steyn. When Jansen told him the pitch at Barsapara felt a bit like SuperSport Park in Pretoria, referring to a bit of jumping up and down, Steyn told his protégé to hit the pitch hard and try a cross-seam delivery. The 25-year-old tried to follow the maestro’s advice, although the first barren spell was a more traditional stump attack negotiated by Yashasvi Jaiswal (58) and KL Rahul (22). But both fell to the spinners, Rahul cutting one off Keshav Maharaj’s left-arm spinner and Jaiswal unable to deal with the bounce Harmer produced to be caught at point. Soon after, another failure by No. 3 Sai Sudharsan opened the floodgates and Jansen stormed in. Jansen resorted to short ball tactics. In the last course before tea, Jurel, for reasons better known to him, tried to attract him. The ill-timed shot was beautifully caught by the onrushing Maharaj. Suddenly the score was 102-4. “When there wasn’t much going on, I tried a short ball against Jurel and it worked. Then during the break the team decided to use it as a tactic,” explained Jansen. Little did the lanky pacer know that Pant, India’s top batsman on paper, would be the first to fall into the short-ball trap right after the break. The way Pant tried to charge Jansen and nudged him gave one the feeling that he had not learned from the first two days of possession that the pitch tends to get much simpler as the ball gets older. Jansen celebrated Pant’s goal. But when asked later in the day if the Indian skipper’s shot selection came as a pleasant surprise for him, the South African pacer defended the left-hander. “Pant and Jurel are both fantastic short ball players. Other times the ball could have easily sailed over my head into the stands. Batters have to find ways to score, sometimes you do, sometimes you don’t,” Jansen said. Nitish Reddy, who played regularly with Jansen in the Sunrisers Hyderabad nets, looked like a fish out of water against the paceman. He failed to hold the sniff and Aiden Markram completed the catch at third slip. “Reddy often hit me 50 rows back into the stands during IPL training,” Jansen said, but it hardly mattered on Monday. After Jansen destroyed India’s middle order, Washington batted again at No. 8, and Kuldeep showed the team’s super seniors that there aren’t many devils on the field. They were ready to buy time, play the spinners with respect and tire Jansen, which Pant & Co. they couldn’t. But with seven wickets down, all they could do was delay the inevitable and their long-lasting partnership of three hours yielded 72 runs, which was not enough. “We live on hope,” the ever-optimistic Washington said at the end of the game. But even he can read the writing on the wall – another humiliating whitewash against the SENA team at home.
