Sourav, Laxman give India an edge |
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Sunday April 13, 12:05 AM
Kanpur, April 12: It was the sort of day at the end of which both sides would have been relatively satisfied. On a crumbling pitch, two exceptional knocks in the form of Sourav Ganguly’s 87 and V.V.S Laxman’s 50 helped give India the lead, but South Africa responded with aplomb getting wickets at key intervals to restrict the hosts to just 288/9 on the second day at the Green Park Stadium on Saturday.
Ganguly’s 119-ball innings studded with nine hits to the fence and one over it, by his own admission, was one of his best ever.
Testing conditions and short bowling has been his nemesis in the past, but Saturday’s 87 was a lesson in fluency, different from his workmanlike 87 in Ahmedabad.
His strokes were only matched by Laxman, who used his wrists with characteristic efficacy in his 103-ball innings that included seven fours.
He added 78 runs with Rahul Dravid while the southpaw put on two 60-run partnerships with Yuvraj Singh and stand-in captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni for the sixth and seventh wicket respectively.
The visitors though managed to pulled things back towards the end, scalping four wickets for 31 runs. The Proteas had posted 265 in their first innings. At stumps, India were 23 runs ahead with going into the third day on the sort of pitch where the batsmen can never feel entirely at ease.
South Africa captain Graeme Smith had talked about how their fast bowlers too could be a major threat on the deteriorating pitch and sure enough the odd ball from the pacers darted around the batsmen’s ankles or exploded at over 140 kmph.
Openers Virender Sehwag and Wasim Jaffer punished the bowlers whenever offered room — Sehwag’s uppercut and Jaffer’s pull off Steyn a testament to that — but they were more than happy to offer a straight bat to balls pitched in the right areas.
The Laxman-Dravid combine and Ganguly-Yuvraj pair did the same at a later stage, but while they made a conscious effort to get on the front foot, the two openers were pegged on the backfoot. That ultimately caused their downfall, felling leg before to Steyn and Morkel respectively in quick succession.
Laxman used his wrists to flick Morkel for three fours in one over even as Dravid nudged the balls and stole singles every time he could.
The pitch may have been skewed in favour of bowlers but the effortless ease with which the stylish Hyderabadi batsmen scored his runs suggested otherwise.
Laxman dominated his stand with Dravid and got to his 50 with a flick off Harris. Morkel bowled erratically all day, but had his revenge with a hostile short burst just prior to tea, when he dismissed both set batsmen, though not without the aid of the track. He got one to shoot off the pitch, that took Dravid’s glove and bobbed up towards gully while Laxman was castled with a ball took his off-stump.
Ganguly, though put India back on the recovery route, combining well with Yuvraj and Dhoni.
He was tested only briefly after he came into the crease. A couple of short-pitched deliveries from Steyn and Morkel had the southpaw pushing and prodding.
He weathered the early storm and once set, launched into pacers and spinner alike. His effort ensured the hosts had a good final session, even with the flurry of wickets at the end.
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