The Hindu : Sport : Kemp, Hall script South Africa's comeback

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Nov 27, 2006
ePaper

Sport

Sport

Kemp, Hall script South Africa's comeback

S. Dinakar

Cape Town: South Africa staged a jailbreak at Newlands. Justin Kemp and Andrew Hall orchestrated a remarkable comeback, and then the pacemen choked the Indians.

India lacked killer instinct on the field. The host was reeling at 76 for six, and India let the moment fly away.

Quite astonishingly,India lost the match by 106 runs. The numbers tell the story of the third ODI. South Africa leads the five match series 2-0.

Fourth game

The fourth game will be staged at Port Elizabeth on Wednesday.

India, chasing 275, began disastrously. Virender Sehwag was picked up well by at third man off Shaun Pollock.

Not much later, Sachin Tendulkar was smartly held by Loots Bosman at square-leg off Pollock. India's downward spiral had begun.

Pollock was humming, hitting the right areas, strangulating the batsmen.

Mohammed Kaif disappointed again, playing on to the paceman.

Pollock had scalped three for 17 in a probing first spell of seven overs.

Only resistance

The only resistance for India came through two contrasting efforts. Skipper Rahul Dravid's 63 (103, 4x4, 1x6) oozed commitment and technical excellence.

And Mahendra Singh Dhoni (55, 48b, 3x4, 4x6) made a bold statement of intent, even striking Makhaya Ntini for a stunning six over long off.

Once he succumbed to a sensational catch at deep square-leg by Bosman off Jacques Kallis, India's cause was a lost one.

Dravid and Dhoni had added 85 in 89 balls for the fifth wicket.

South Africa kept the pressure on India with tight bowling and brilliant fielding. Actually, India lost the plot earlier.

India, arguably, has the worst attack at the death. On Sunday, the pacemen neither revealed the pace nor the precision; forget the variations.

Andrew Hall (56 not out, 47b, 7x4) sliced the attack open, Kemp (100 not out, 89b, 6x4, 7x6) left it battered with some effortless straight hitting.

The Indian pacemen played into Kemps hands by resorting to a fuller length; a bowler needs speed to adopt this tactic successfully.

The last 10 overs fetched South Africa a whopping 113 runs, 58 of them arriving from the final five.

The unbeaten 138-run partnership between Kemp and Hall in 14.1 overs was the highest eight-wicket association in ODIs.

Critical stand

Equally critical was the 60-run stand for the seventh wicket in 16.3 overs between Kemp and a battling Pollock.

Dravid could have relied on pace at one end, instead of depending on a double spin attack during the early stages of this partnership. India should have looked at bowling South Africa out.

Kemp's 89-ball unbeaten 100, his first ODI hundred, was built keeping the demands of the team in mind.

His second fifty was slammed off just 22 balls. The Indians did not quite know what hit them.

Save Zaheer in his incisive first spell of 7-4-9-3 and the accurate and admirable Anil Kumble, the Indians bowled poorly. The fielding was worse. Some of the lapses would have put a club side to shame.

Catches were put down too.

Kemp was dropped twice on nine — by Kaif at silly point off Harbhajan and by Tendulkar off his own bowling. Then, on 34, Dinesh Karthik put him down at mid-wicket off Harbhajan.

Pollock was given a `life' on 12, when Dravid, at slip, dropped one off Harbhajan.

Clearly, Irfan Pathan lacks the pace to be effective once the ball loses shine and hardness. Ajit Agarkar is veering back to his inconsistent ways.

Not allowed to settle down by the South African batsman, Harbhajan Singh is struggling with his line here; the Indian catching let him down too.

A side, which had the opposition reeling at 76 for six in the 20th over, allowed the game to first drift and then get away from it completely.

Good start

Indeed, things started so differently for India. Smith, after a public showdown by selection panel chief Haroon Lorgat over the non-inclusion of in-form paceman Andre Nel nursing a finger injury, elected to bat.

Zaheer Khan was on target straightaway, exploiting Graeme Smith's elaborate, angular backlift, and then having Jacques Kallis and Loots Bosman, both followed deliveries angled across them, to Tendulkar in the slip cordon.

Gibbs falls

Local boy Herschelle Gibbs, in need of runs, thumped a few boundaries through cover, before miscuing one off Pathan to the same area.

Abraham de Villiers entertained with drives and flicks but could not consolidate, falling to one of the rare well-directed deliveries from Agarkar in the corridor.

Mark Boucher — Kumble did well to collect a high throw from the deep — and Pollock — Kaif threw down the stumps acrobatically — were run out. But the quality of Indian fielding, gradually, deteriorated.

Ahead of the match, Dravid had called for greater commitment and aggression from his men. He would not have been happy with the response.

SCOREBOARD

South Africa: G. Smith b Zaheer 0, L. Bosman c Tendulkar b Zaheer 6, J. Kallis c Tendulkar b Zaheer 0, H. Gibbs c Kaif b Pathan 35, A.B. de Villiers c Dhoni b Agarkar 29, M. Boucher (run out) 4, J. Kemp (not out) 100, S. Pollock (run out) 33, A. Hall (not out) 56; Extras (lb-1, nb-2, w-8): 11; Total (for seven wkts. in 50 overs): 274.

Fall of wickets: 1-0, 2-0, 3-38, 4-42, 5-71, 6-76, 7-136.

India bowling: Zaheer 10-4-42-3, Agarkar 9-0-71-1, Pathan 8-1-60-1, Kumble 10-1-24-0, Harbhajan 10-0-63-0, Tendulkar 3-0-13-0.

India: V. Sehwag c Hall b Pollock 0, S. Tendulkar c Bosman b Pollock 2, R. Dravid c Hall b Pollock 63, M. Kaif b Pollock 10, D. Karthik c Smith b Ntini 14, M. Dhoni c Bosman b Kallis 55, I. Pathan c Smith b Kallis 1, Harbhajan c Smith b Hall 10, A. Agarkar c Smith b Hall 6, Zaheer (not out) 2, A. Kumble b Hall 0; Extras (lb-1, w-4): 5; Total (in 41.3 overs) 168.

Fall of wickets: 1-0, 2-7, 3-17, 4-44, 5-129, 6-133, 7-148, 8-156, 9-168.

South Africa bowling: Pollock 9-1-26-4, Ntini 7-2-13-1, Hall 9.3-0-45-3, Langeveldt 5-0-31-0, Kallis 8-0-29-2, Kemp 1-0-13-0, Smith 2-0-10-0.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Sport