India vs South Africa

India’s tour of South Africa couldn’t have started worse.

The first Test match began on the 16th of December at the Centurion, South Africa won the toss and elected to field, from then on everything went downhill for India.

Our supposedly top class batting side started falling like nine pins, opener Gautam Gambhir made just 5runs in 62 balls and it was quite obvious that he didn’t know how to play Morne Morkel who was ultimately responsible for taking his wicket.

Whenever Virender Sehwag gets out a person is usually thinking of two things at the same time, one is, “dang it! Oh well that’s Sehwag” and “Why god why? He was supposed to make a double ton this time”

Sehwag just managed to make an entrance swinging his bat and also made his exit within 9 deliveries getting out on a duck on the exceptional bowling of Dale Steyn.

Rahul Dravid made just 14runs in 61balls which probably must have put the spectators to sleep; he got out on an lbw by Morne Morkel, so the wall finally crashed.

Sachin Tendulkar also couldn’t do much, just managed to make 36runs in 61 deliveries, he also got out on an lbw but this time by Steyn. So slowly but surely Morkel and Steyn were chipping away India’s big names.

VVS Laxman showed that he only gets the will to play like a crazy man when the opposing team is Australia; he made 7runs and was yet another victim of the “Steyn ball”.

M. S. Dhoni and Harbhajan Singh made a big of an effort to put back the disintegrated pieces but alas! Couldn’t do squat when Morne Morkel looked like he wanted to claim “the big 5”. Dhoni made 33 runs and Harbhajan being Harbhajan got run out at 27, it is foolish to think so, but I’m sure many of us wanted Harbhajan to pull of another miracle and at least manage to salvage some Dignity for India.

Ishant Sharma and Sreesanth both made 0, which nobody will blame them for, if the top order batsmen couldn’t play Morne Morkel then what hope did the tail enders have?

So India made a sorry sum of 136, one would have thought the way India was playing cricket that they were still in ODI mode.

Tags: 1st Test, Centurion, Cricket, India, Indian Sports, South Africa, Sports, Sports India, Supersport Park, Test Cricket, Test Series