It had been an unusually subdued first half of the first international men’s match to be played at the New PCA Stadium on Thursday. The venue’s location, in Mullanpur on the outskirts of Chandigarh, meant it took a while for it to fill up. The elegant batting masterclass from Quinton de Kock, which had powered South Africa to a hefty-looking 213-run total, had flattened the home crowd too.
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On his first ball, Punjab lad Shubman Gill nicked one to second slip to depart. Abhishek Sharma had given the fans some cause to roar with a couple of early sixes, but nicked one to the wicketkeeper himself a few minutes later. The hush grew. It meant that the local troika – the first time in nearly 20 years that as many as three players from the state were playing an international on home turf – had all flopped after Arshdeep Singh’s wicketless, error-ridden spell that leaked 54 runs.
Bad omens persisted. The rest of the noise was hopeful, at best, and sometimes hapless. A clinical performance by South Africa took the wind out of the crowd’s sails, and brought India back down to earth after their hammering in the first T20I, to pick up a 51-run victory and level the five-match series 1-1. They extracted more runs with the bat – led by Quinton de Kock and powered by an explosive finish – saved crucial boundaries in the field, and bowled exceptionally in the middle overs despite the dew that has plagued the entire white-ball leg of their tour of the subcontinent.
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Bowling the difference
De Kock’s innings had match-winning quality, but the chase wouldn’t have fazed India at the start. The fact that their batting order survived till the 19th over, and that Tilak Varma played a well-paced 34-ball 62, is plenty of evidence of that fact.
But the difference lay in the manner in which both bowling units went about dealing with the dew and the pressure of leaking runs. India were put under the pump midway through the first innings and immediately caved in, while South Africa were disciplined and stuck to their bowling plans.
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One stat exemplifies the contrast between the two sides: South Africa bowled one wide compared to India’s 15 (of which Arshdeep bowled seven in one over)
“Things got away from us a bit too quickly while (India was) bowling. We were doing well and (Quinton) de Kock hit that first ball after the break (10 overs) for six. And then we just went too far away from our plans,” Ryan ten Doeschate, the India assistant coach, said after the defeat.
With dew playing such a crucial role, it seemed like the prudent strategy were those flat-batted strokes down the V, or finding the odd cheap boundary by playing it late behind square. Those are probably the instructions the South African ‘keeper-batter could be seen barking to Donovan Fereira (who finished with a 16-ball 30) after he had lost his wicket to an stumping from a mishit offside flick 10 runs short of a century. The same gameplan worked very well for Tilak as well.
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But the only counter seemed to be the slow bouncers that Hardik Pandya and Shivam Dube were bowling in the first innings, the only deliveries that managed to find grip and bounce, foxing the batters. But while both the Indians erred in line, the Proteas were consistent in making the Indian batters slap the ball down or fruitlessly – and at times, cluelessly – play some late cuts.
There were also early wickets; making the most of the new and moving ball is the basic template of how to defend totals when dew plays a major role. It’s a sticking issue for India. “Not happy with how many times we have been down to 35/3 in the last few games,” was how Ten Doeschate put it.
But the Indians fell to the kind of high-quality deliveries that are few and far between in this format. Gill’s dismissal was to a Ngidi length ball that nipped away at the last moment. Jansen, with his natural speed and bounce due to his tall frame, took out Abhishek with a proper Test dismissal – holding the length back an inch more than Ngidi and bowling on the classic off-stump line, letting the movement off the pitch do the rest. Suryakumar went fishing against a Jansen ball that once again moved away from him on the angle.
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The match was not lost despite India’s top order back in the dressing room; they bat deep and the dew would only get worse. Pandya and Tilak seemed to be building the kind of partnership that could have set up a grand finish. But the Proteas bowlers conceded 111 runs from the last 14, and just 80 from the last 10, a testament to their discipline as much as it was one to India’s failings.
The visitors have roared back into this series; India remain the most in-form side in world cricket, winning 22 of their last 26 T20Is, but they have been asked to raise their game.