India have staged draws and even wins after conceding big first-innings totals at home. But this team is in transition, with Gill out injured
Karthik Krishnaswamy23-Nov-20254:46
How can India bounce back in Guwahati?
Innumerable hurdles remain, but India have crossed the first one. Their openers have survived the 6.1 overs they had to endure in fading light with nothing to gain and everything to lose. It’s the one thing they’ll feel thankful for after a bruising second day in Guwahati.India know how much worse it could be. The last time they played a home series against South Africa, in 2019-20, the shoe had been entirely on the other foot – theirs. They had won three tosses out of three, made three massive first-innings totals, and made South Africa’s top order bat in the same sorts of end-of-day-two situations.South Africa’s scores after those mini-sessions: 39 for 3 in 20 overs in Visakhapatnam, 36 for 3 in 15 overs in Pune, and 9 for 2 in five overs in similarly fading light in Ranchi, another city in the east of the country.At least it isn’t as bad as that.Related
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Regardless, India find themselves at the foot of the steepest of uphill trudges. They are 1-0 down in a two-Test series. Lose or draw from here, they lose the series. They are replying to a South Africa total of 489. No visiting team has posted a first-innings total that big and lost a Test in India.Steep as their task may be, though, it remains within the realms of possibility. The transition from the Virat Kohli era to this one is now almost complete, but India’s dressing room still contains two men, Ravindra Jadeja and KL Rahul, who played through the home season of 2016-17. During that season, India – on pitches not dissimilar to this one in Guwahati – lost the toss and conceded 400-plus totals three times to England and once to Australia, and came out of those four Tests with wins in Mumbai and Chennai, and draws in Rajkot and Ranchi. In both drawn Tests, day five began with an India victory still possible.Those results came on the back of marathon efforts from India’s top-order batters: two hundreds from M Vijay, two from Cheteshwar Pujara including a double in Ranchi, a double from Kohli in Mumbai, and, in Chennai, a 199 from Rahul and a triple from Karun Nair.In Guwahati, India will begin day three with all ten wickets in hand and a line-up of serious depth, but most of their batters haven’t faced this sort of situation in a home Test. And India are without Shubman Gill, their regular No. 4 and perhaps their best-equipped middle-order batter for a challenge that involves both batting long and scoring briskly.Conditions, though, most likely will not have changed much from day two, during which South Africa’s last four wickets added 243 runs.”Personally, I felt yesterday [day one], first session, there was a bit of moisture in the wicket, so I got a little bit of turn,” Kuldeep Yadav, who took 4 for 115 in 29.1 overs, said of the conditions. “After that, it was very good to bat on. There wasn’t any turn yesterday as well as today. Today was much better to bat, because I mean I hardly got any turn; even me and Jadeja, we have been talking about it, but the wicket was very good to bat on.”1:10
Kuldeep: ‘We’re not thinking about day four or day five’
For all the partnerships running South Africa’s innings, India’s bowlers kept control of the scoreboard for much of their innings, with South Africa’s run rate still under three an over when they lost their seventh wicket in the 121st over. A 91-ball 93 from No. 9 Marco Jansen, however, ensured South Africa ended up with close to 500 on the board.That Jansen was batting so far down the order was down to South Africa’s selection. When they brought in the spin-bowling allrounder Senuran Muthusamy – who batted at No. 7 and scored his maiden Test hundred – they had to choose between two seam-bowling allrounders to leave out. They kept the batting allrounder Wiaan Mulder in the side and left out the bowling allrounder Corbin Bosch.That depth contributed not just to the size of South Africa’s total but also the time their first innings took out of the Test match. When India took their seventh wicket in the second session of day two, did they have some sort of number – both in terms of South Africa’s total and when their innings would end – in mind for feeling like they were still in with a good chance of winning?”To be very honest, we knew that this was not a track [where you can roll a team over] very easily,” Kuldeep said. “We have to keep disciplined lines and be patient, and we tried, but yeah, as everyone knows, Marco Jansen and Muthusamy batted well. There wasn’t any number that we thought, okay, we [should] get them all out for 400 or 350.”South Africa’s selection, though, could also leave them lacking bowling depth, with Mulder sharing the new ball and Muthusamy, playing his first Test of the series, as one of two left-arm orthodox spinners against a line-up full of left-hand batters. Muthusamy comes into this Test match on the back of a Player-of-the-Series display in Pakistan, but the pitches he bowled on there were far more helpful than this one in Guwahati is likely to be.5:06
‘Extremely tactical’ hitting from Jansen
If India bat out day three without too many wickets lost, they could put this South Africa attack under pressure. Their batters, albeit with Gill absent, are certainly capable of doing this, as they showed on the recent tour of England.But through that tour and during the home series against England last year – the last time India played a strong opposition on good batting pitches at home – the batters also showed a tendency for dismissals against the run of play, to attacking shots, often close to breaks in play. These dismissals came at a high cost, particularly in Hyderabad, in Leeds, and at Lord’s, where strong India positions quickly turned to parity, and thereafter to England gaining a decisive advantage. These sorts of moments even happened during South Africa’s innings in Guwahati, with Temba Bavuma and Mulder out caught at mid-off on day one.India will have to guard against these lapses, but sometimes they’re par for the course with inexperienced line-ups. Scoring big hundreds is often about finding a rhythm against a particular bowler, sticking to it, and getting comfortable with a certain level of monotony. Gill has certainly learned to bat like this, as he showed while scoring 269 and 161 in his two innings in Birmingham, and will be a particularly big miss in this regard. Of India’s other batters, Yashasvi Jaiswal is the one proven scorer of big hundreds.As much as India will need to bat time, though, they’ll also need to do it at a good tempo. A draw is of little use to them, while it will suit South Africa perfectly. They can pack the off-side field and bowl wide of off stump if they want, or ask their left-arm spinners to bowl over the wicket and pitch outside the right-handers’ leg stump. Early finishes for bad light won’t hurt them unduly.India will have to do all the running. They’ll need to establish firm foundations, but they’ll also need to find ways of scoring quickly if they are to get close to South Africa’s total, or get beyond it, with enough time still left for their bowlers to force a result. While most of their batters can bat in different gears, Rishabh Pant has an extra gear that’s all his own. More than ever, and on captaincy debut, he could be an utterly key player.This has been a thankless series for India. They lost the first Test after losing the toss on one kind of Indian pitch, and they’re in this unenviable position in the second, after losing the toss on an entirely different kind of pitch. If their long-held belief that tosses matter too much on flat home pitches seemed like paranoia when they were losing on extreme turners, this Test has shown it wasn’t unfounded.The truth, quite simply, is that no pitch can guarantee winning, and that India, as formidable as their record was until last year, have no god-given right to win home Tests. They know this. They know they are in transition. They know their own past successes have contributed to oppositions becoming smarter with selections and preparation for India tours.For all that, this Test match is still alive; India will have to believe this, at any rate, and believe they have the players to pull it off.