Graeme Smith won the toss and elected to bat, after 20 overs SA are 77/0. The pitch in chennai is dead but it might help the spinners, as a result India dropped Pathan and selected Harbhajan for this game, Wasim Jaffer has again been given the vote of confidence despite his six failures in Australia, he will open with Virender Sehwag.
RP Singh and S Sreesanth also made a come back in the team.
Indian team has already been declared the favorites for this three match series but I beg to differ from this assertion. India did performed well In Australia and their morale is high and the South Africans may not appear to be as strong as the Australians on paper but they do have a much more balanced team then the Aussies, they have beaten West Indies, Pakistan and Bangladesh recently and have won four out of their last five tests as opposed to India who have managed to win only one out of five.
South Africa’s Pace attack is one of the best in the world, Dale steyn might prove to be the X factor in this series he recently broke Alan Donald’s record by taking 100 wickets in 20 matches he is genuinely fast and does not have to rely on conditions unlike his Indian counterparts.
Paul Harris is another key weapon for the South Africans he is not just another left arm spinner he is quite accurate and he is quite capable of drying out the runs, he took 12 wickets against Pakistan last year against the likes of Younis Khan and Mohammed Yousuf who have thumped Kumble & co at will in the recent past. Indians are generally good against the spinners but they do have a weakness against the good leftarm spinners. It will be an interesting battle to watch, the Indian batsmen will have to attack Harris to take him out of the equation.
SA will miss the services of Nel, Lengeveldt and Pollock the Indians must be relieved. South African batsmen do have a weakness against spinners and at times their batting line up collapses due to poor shot selection and impatience, their bowlers have a tendency to bowl short which on dead pitches against top batting line up can become a weakness. Indian Batsmen will need a lot of courage and patience as South African bowlers are very aggressive and are always in the face of their opposition.
India on the other hand are missing the services of Zahir Khan and Ishaant Sharma both have not recovered from injuries they sustained in Australia as a result India might struggle in the pace department, in bowling Kumble will have to do the bulk of the work. Their batting line looks good on paper but Dravid has not played a lot of cricket recently so it will be difficult for him to strike form in the first match, Jaffer and Sehwag didnt score much in Australia, I think India should have persisted with Gautam Gambhir, its difficult to touch India’s middle order but soon enough we will know the form of Ganguly and Dravid. Sachin and VVS will be the key players for India.
Both teams are fighting for the #2 ranking, most of the matches will be high scoring, it is supposed to rain in Chennai so I am not too sure if we will get a result in this match.
Indian strategy of playing two spinners has back fired as SA batsmen did their home work before the series and they look quite comfortable against Indian spinners,India should have played Pathan in place of Harbhajan,now India will be looking toward their batsmen to save this match,SA has scored their runs at a high pace, and if their bowlers get India out cheaply we might see a result.
It will be hard for South Africa to score around 450 Boucher is the last recognized batsman and he is not in good batting form it all depends on how long Amla and AB can bat tommorrow,India should try and bowl them out around 375.
The Chennai Pitch has always been flat,its too early to predict the fate of the match if India gets SA out around 400 they will be safe, Dale Steyn poses a big threat but India has managed Brett Lee in Australia so on a flat pitch Dale might not be such a big threat the only difference between the Aussie and South African bowlers is that SA bowlers keep on bowling at your body with an angle, they do sometime go for runs but they are all wicket taking bowlers,SA will miss Nel he lifts the whole team with his energy and non stop aggression.
Batting second and chasing a big score is always a difficult job, Sehwag and Jaffer are not in the best of form,if India loses early wickets it will be difficult for them to chase a big total,but Jaffer has always scored big on Flat tracks,lets see if he lives to his reputation. India also fielded poorly and gave away too many runs in the field,Sreesanth and Singh might have learned a lesson about how to bowl on a flat pitch hopefully they will perform better in second innings.
Indian Bowlers struggled against the South African batsmen on the first day,RP Singh and Sreesanth went over 4 an over and bowled too straight the line and length was not right,Indian bowlers must bowl a nagging line on this Dead pitch and should not try to bowl too many different deliveries in one over.South Africa must score over 450 runs if they have to fancy any chances against India.
South Africa are all set to score over 400 runs,Sreesanth and RP Singh looked out of sorts both were making a come back in the team, they showed their inexperience if South Africa manages to take a substantial first innings lead then it will be hard for India to make a come back in the match it was agood toss to win, a flat pitch in the first match shows India has a defensive mentality for this series,the pitch should have been conducive for spinners at least.
India can recover if they take early wickets tommorrow and shot out South Africa under 400 SA do not have Pollock and their tail is quite long.