India tour of South Africa - 2013/14

[scratch978]

South Africa could have won that but as usual they bottled it. If I was a South African cricket fan i'd be fuming with the way the match ended but if I was Indian cricket fan i'd be jumping with joy shouting ''How the hell did we get away with a draw!?''.

Yes, the truth is that the Indians can digest the draw better than the, but you must not forget that Indians were right into the winning position(with three wickets remaining and steyn facing shami) till the last over..

 

[barmyarmy]

Du Plessis was playing for the draw all innings. He couldn't raise his game when they started to get closer. Even without the runout it had draw written all over it.
Losing ABdV was the key.

 

[isrararrafi]

Du Plessis was playing for the draw all innings. He couldn't raise his game when they started to get closer. Even without the runout it had draw written all over it.
Losing ABdV was the key.

LOL. Did you expect him to go for a win the whole innings when the team needs to chase down a world record score on the 5th day? Don't like the guy but other than that run out he played very sensibly throughout. And if you watched the game he did try to pick the tempo in the end but the plan was for philander to take the risk and if he gets out while doing so, faf will be there to draw the game at the least.

More than his run out, the only person here to be "blamed" is philander who took the decision to play for the draw and steyn went with it.

 

[AngryPixel]

Someone of twitter summarized it best: "South Africa spent all day wining & dining history, paid for her dinner, got her drunk, got her back to the hotel room & then just passed out."

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Even South African supporters were booing at Philander when he was refusing singles in the second last over.

 

[barmyarmy]

LOL. Did you expect him to go for a win the whole innings when the team needs to chase down a world record score on the 5th day? Don't like the guy but other than that run out he played very sensibly throughout. And if you watched the game he did try to pick the tempo in the end but the plan was for philander to take the risk and if he gets out while doing so, faf will be there to draw the game at the least.

More than his run out, the only person here to be "blamed" is philander who took the decision to play for the draw and steyn went with it.

Once he got his 100 and the game was basically safe he should have upped the tempo but wasn't able to. I think his S/R even went down after getting to 3 figures.
They should have got more of the runs before Steyn even arrived at the crease. It isn't easy to win test matches and you don't get many chances so you ought to make sure you take the ones you get with both hands.

 

[isrararrafi]

Once he got his 100 and the game was basically safe he should have upped the tempo but wasn't able to. I think his S/R even went down after getting to 3 figures.
They should have got more of the runs before Steyn even arrived at the crease. It isn't easy to win test matches and you don't get many chances so you ought to make sure you take the ones you get with both hands.

He was in visible discomfort after reaching his century. His foot works became confused and timing became bad too. He seemed to having a hard time understanbly as fatigue probably caught up to him. Not denying that south africa should have gone for the win, but he is one of the last people to be blamed for it. Philander and duminy (for sucking) should be blamed more than anyone else.

 

[scratch978]

Du Plessis was playing for the draw all innings.

But we must not forget that till tea or at least till the last hour, it was important for SA to not to lose the match

 

[Aravind.]

It finally ends like a t20 match.Well played both the teams.

 

[scratch978]

On day 5,
For SA, it was the AB-Faf show, they put on a 205-run stand to put their side on course for a world record chase.

But, was it Rahane, the game changer for India?
Special credit should go to Rahane, yesterday he turned the game with the run-out of Smith and today just when South Africa seemed to be winning, he pops up at mid-off and runs Faf out. To do it in a pressure situation when your side are close to losing, takes a special effort and Rahane proved to be the game changer.

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Whatever happened in the last session at the Wanderers, this has been a victory for Test cricket, real Test cricket, not the India/WI rubbish

If the first Test is anything to go by, the second Test promises to be a mega-cracker. While South Africa will have to fill up the injured Morkel's big boots, the tired Indian bowlers will look to recharge their batteries before the second and final Test at Durban.

 

[StinkyBoHoon]

it was a tough wicket to bat quickly on, india couldn't manage to get the fast runs they wanted at the start of day 4 without losing wickets so it didn't really surprise me south africa struggled to chase down the total in the last session.

anyway, it does need to be said.

WHAT. A. MATCH.

one of the best I've seen for a while, and much because it was the quality of the two opponents that set it up rather than collapses or inept bowling. I've under-rated Faf I think, to pull out performances like that within a year deserves serious respect. great support from AB of course. the partnerships of De Villier and du Plessis and Kohli and Pujara almost can't be seperated in terms of sheer quality. incredible. wonderful fielding exhibition from Rahane too.

 

[KBC]

Brilliant match. Time and again a match like this can symbolize the ever present importance and beauty of test matches. For a change one of the best 5th day(s) in a test match if not the best. SA should've pulled off the greatest chase ever had Morkel was sure to go out and bat but in the end a draw seemed absolutely deserving for both sides. Fair play to them to avoid risking a choke again in the final overs. Couldn't have asked for more. Funny people had written off India in the first day; little did they know (or anyone) of what was coming.

Great year ending stalemate, new year ahead and the second test match should look promising after what's happened today. ()

 

[crazyrahul]

What a wonderful match that was, that's why Test Cricket is Best Cricket

Hats off to all 22 players who contributed towards this game. At the end of the day, the match is DRAWN Really felt bad for Faf and ABD, Saffers deserved win on last day Though I am Indian fan, I am still saying this.

Virat, Pujara, Shami, Rahane are the future of Indian Cricket, keep it up

 

[Aalay]

Really felt bad for Faf and ABD, Saffers deserved win on last day Though I am Indian fan, I am still saying this.

I don't know how they deserve it and we don't? We dominated the match for 3 and a half days. Yes they played very well from yesterday afternoon and that is the reason draw is a fair result. Saying South Africa deserved it and we don't does not make sense to me.

 

[StinkyBoHoon]

I think what was so great about it was it was finely balanced, it was the ideal time for south africa to go in. it was trying to pull away from each other that did both teams in, india could have easily set 500 had they deemed that completely necessary, but they tried to up the tempo though and got out setting 450.

so it asked a question of SAF, can they bat long and accelerate when they need to. they just couldn't manage it enough, but it would have cruel to see india beaten by the misjudgement of trying to score fast runs just a little too early so a result based on being balanced ability wise was pretty fair.

for people saying SAF choked though, remember, Morkel wouldn't have batted so Tahir, who is really, really bad with the bat was the next one in and so it was a lot closer to a win for india than 3 wickets looks. (I guess though, had they got tahir with the last ball morkel would have technically counted as a bat so it would still be a draw)

 

[War]

If S Africa would have won, that would have to rated as highly as IND Kolkotta 2001 win over AUS in terms of come back wins in test history. You just dont follow on and win in test cricket & you just don't chase 450+ in test history & win.

S Africa's recovery does aid in their aura as clear # 1 though. Similarly vs AUS in Adelaide last year - AUS dominated the S Africa for most of the test match to IND here & S Africa took that momemtun into the Perth test & destroyed AUS - so IND despite them standing up admirably in this test, should be wary of this.


Proteas made a big mistake to play Tahir though, he may have spun S Africa to victory in their most recent test in vs PAK. So he has his uses in certain conditions, but vs IND he was always likely to be a easy target, because of IND historic ease, IND bats handle leg-spinners. This is noticeably exposed when M Morkel got injured, another seamer then to support Steyn/Philander/Kallis might have stopped Pujura/Kohil partnership.

Now that they have called up Kyle Abbot, their best XI is to return to an all-pace attack and also pick Rory Klienvelt. Although i feel B Hendricks, Chris Morris or Ryan Mclaren based on form & availabity (M De Lange & Hardus Viljeon are injured or suspended) would have been a better choice instead of Klienvelth.


On IND batting, well before this series IMO & the stats showed that Kohli & Pujara were the only IND new generations batsmen who seemed to have the skills to score runs overseas. So if anyone was going to make runs was going to be them.

The likes of Dhawan, Vijay, Sharma, Rahana still have quesitons marks, while Ashwin after getting some easy wickets in 2013, after ENG made him look relatively docile in 2012, notably didn't look threatening against a proper batting line-up again.

Thus in the overall assessment of IND 2014 tour assignments; 1 test down 12 to go.