da luck： The last day’s play in the first Test in Mumbai raised anintriguing question
Anand Vasu26-Feb-2000The last day’s play in the first Test in Mumbai raised anintriguing question. Did South Africa win this game or didIndia lose it? If one looked carefully at the way the gameprogressed, the opinion would have to be that India lost thematch.The first battle was lost while selecting the team. Theinclusion of Ajay Jadeja at No 6 meant straightaway that Indiawere playing with one player short. Jadeja’s record in Testcricket is unimpressive. Moreover, in the Board President’s XIgame against South Africa, he made scores of 2 and 3. Hardly thekind of scores that warrants Test selection. The non-inclusionof Nikhil Chopra might also have had a bearing on the game asIndia were clearly one spinner short in the final innings.India began well, winning the toss. And with that India’s goodrun ended. Batting first, India made just 225 on a track thatlooked good for batting. The South African pacemen were too hotfor everyone in the team save Tendulkar. The captain made abrave 97 but was not backed up by any of his teammates. Inresponse, India did well to restrict the South Africans to 176.Apart from the openers, none of the visitors made runs.A lead of 49 was quite handy, and far more than the Indians wouldhave hoped for after South Africa were 90 for no loss. What theyneeded was a solid second innings performance. If they had putbetween 150 and 170 on the board they could have given SouthAfrica a run for their money. Instead, they collapsedinexplicably. Doing far worse than their first innings, Indiafolded up for just 113 runs. In an all too familiar script, theopeners failed, the middle order collapsed and the tail refusedto wag. A couple of twitches of the tail came late in theinnings when Mongia, batting at No 11, made 19 off just 10 balls.In the middle of all this, the man we knew as Rahul `The Wall’Dravid stuttered and stumbled, making a painful 37 in overthree hours. He was totally unable to either score freely ormake runs with the tail and one wondered what happened to theyoung man who made centuries in tough conditions in both NewZealand and South Africa.There are certainly some tough mental battles raging inDravid’s head and the sooner he sorts them out the betterfor Indian cricket. The crowds were on the verge of chantingRahul `The crawl’ Dravid and that surely would have been asevere slap in the face.India simply did not have it in them to defend 163. Not on athird day Wankhede wicket. Though the South Africans struggledto negotiate the spinners, they made it home with four wicketsto spare. Gibbs and Boucher made useful contributions and anelated Allen Donald ran into the field as Boucher smashed thewinning runs through midwicket.Though Tendulkar was named man of the match, this was littleconsolation for the Indian skipper. India have begun badly inthe series. To reverse the momentum will be a tough task. TheSouth Africans are not the kind of team that will fritter awaytheir chances.