ScoreCard
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.
First it was Kumble and then it was the bad light which ruined India’s chances to win the series 2-0. India gave Pakistan an impossible target of 374 in 47 overs, being 1-0 in the series Kumble was in no mood to take any chances and decided to play it safe by continuing to bat after lunch showing a lack of courage and a lack of confidence in his bowlers, a decision which might haunt him for sometime. The wicket was already breaking on the final day and if India had put Pakistan into bat after the lunch India could have won the series 2-0 but historically Indian captains always become defensive after taking the lead in a series.
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