Indian tour of South Africa, December-January 2010/11

[Rohit Doshi]

If these two continue this partnership then the test match might head towards draw. Or India might just edge ahead with Dhoni,Laxman,Pujara to come and Zak and Sree or even Ishant getting some help out of the pitch and dismissing say Africa for 200 odd runs.

But thats just a dream. Wish it comes true

 

[SciD]

Lets hope India don't have one of those famous session blunder which are common in every series abroad.

 

[mohit_dude10]

They will collapse in 1st session and after SA get 300-350, India will have to bat out last day for draw.

 

[Rohit Doshi]

Sachin has looked focused. Pitch is supporting more bounce but I do not think Indians will go after and get themselves out

Yes, the 1st Session is really important for the outcome of the match as collapse in the session can mean that South Africa can pile on runs and then India need to chase a huge target.

But if Gambhir and Tendulkar fight out the session like the last one then India is in the match

 

[War]

Uh huh. I was Sehwag's biggest fan earlier, and I thought his success outside the subcontinent was enough to show that he could play the swinging/seaming ball well. Going by how he's played this series, he's been a sitting duck against Steyn. These dismissals are horrific, all of them are due to poor technique. I know he's got a great eye, but it seems there is a reason a cricketing technique has been developed over the decades. If he doesn't succeed in England I'm afraid he'll go down in history as a flat track bully which is a bit of a shame since he's better than that.

Indeed. Even tours to the West Indies if they have Taylor & Edwards back to compliment Roach& AUS will also be a HUGE test for him.

This series (although he has one last innings to do something). Pretty much proves why his technice & his flashy style of batting which has gotten him all those runs in his career on flat wickets in the 2000s era. Just isn't sustainable againts quality new-ball bowling which was ever present during the 70s, 80s & 90s.

Sehwag has to totally reinvent his game or else not only will be obviously go down as a FTB. But he could possibly he loose his place as a opener if ENG, WI, AUS pace attacks rape him.

 

[sohum]

To be fair to Sehwag, it's not like he's the only one missing out. Conditions have suited the middle orders somewhat.

Yes, whilst we're talking about Sehwag, let's take a look at the other openers in this series:

South Africa
Graeme Smith: 28.50 (despite a half-century in the best of batting conditions in the 1st Test)
Alviro Petersen: 37.00 (again, half-century in the best of batting conditions)

India
Virender Sehwag: 26.60 (fifty came in second innings in good batting conditions)
Gautam Gambhir: 75.00 (includes current innings' not out)
Murali Vijay: 14.00

If you look at the series from the perspective of all the batsmen, there have only been eight players to have scored a 50 and five to have scored a century. If you take out the numbers from the first Test, where the batting conditions were pretty favorable from South Africa's innings onwards, only three half-centuries and one century has been scored since. That's in two whole matches (6 innings) so it's not as if it's been the easiest place to bat.

Yes, of course Sehwag's technique is going to keep him down, but consider the fact that everyone, including the openers on the other team, have struggled to put up runs. Smith, in particular, has not looked particularly good with his technique, virtually a sitting duck to Zaheer as he is unable to figure out which way the ball is moving.

 

[pcfan123]

Sehwag has been found out for the FTB he is. His awful technique is exposed on a real Test wicket and in proper Test conditions.

 

[SaiSrini]

Playing your natural game just isnt on when the conditions are tough. If Sehwag doesnt have the patience to play in challenging conditions, maybe he should just restrict himself to playing in the subcontinent. Bowlers find it very easy to play on the mind of Sehwag and get him out in these conditions. I wont agree when he says he will only play his natural game of swing and miss. I cant argue with people now who say Sehwag is a FTB.

 

[War]

Yes, whilst we're talking about Sehwag, let's take a look at the other openers in this series:

South Africa
Graeme Smith: 28.50 (despite a half-century in the best of batting conditions in the 1st Test)
Alviro Petersen: 37.00 (again, half-century in the best of batting conditions)

India
Virender Sehwag: 26.60 (fifty came in second innings in good batting conditions)
Gautam Gambhir: 75.00 (includes current innings' not out)
Murali Vijay: 14.00

If you look at the series from the perspective of all the batsmen, there have only been eight players to have scored a 50 and five to have scored a century. If you take out the numbers from the first Test, where the batting conditions were pretty favorable from South Africa's innings onwards, only three half-centuries and one century has been scored since. That's in two whole matches (6 innings) so it's not as if it's been the easiest place to bat.

Yes, of course Sehwag's technique is going to keep him down, but consider the fact that everyone, including the openers on the other team, have struggled to put up runs. Smith, in particular, has not looked particularly good with his technique, virtually a sitting duck to Zaheer as he is unable to figure out which way the ball is moving.

You cant use this series as a yardstick. The difference between Sehwag & someone like Smith careers wise is that Smith is proven opener in all conditions againts quality new-ball bowling (although he himself early on had to fight of criticism of being a FTB) while Sehwag long before this had an abysmal record worldwide everytime he encountered a quality pace attack in helpul conditions. Smith's just has a problem vs Zaheer.

Cant bring Gambhir & Peterson into this discussion. Peterson in in his 1st year on intl cricket. While Gambhir is in his 1st series againts a quality new-ball attack, his career can either go down from here like Wasim Jaffer (who also scored a hundred the last time IND toured SA but later on was dropped due to his struggles vs AUS) or he can continue to build on this series performances.

 

[StinkyBoHoon]

while I would agree sehwag has not exactly covered himself in glory, there seems to be a lot of doublespeak in the conclusions drawn from this series.

SA just collapsed, whereas India couldn't cope.
India relied to much on one batsman to win their test but still failed overall, whereas Kallis is brilliant but lets not mention the other batsmen failing.
Sehwag is a FTB, smith just can't play one indian seamer (weird that its the one with any real quality, isn't it?).

to be honest I think you're also being well harsh on gambhir. He's surprised me this series, his form from last year was looking to be a bit of a flash in the pan but he's adjusted to a really good bowling attack and his performance's here have been pretty good.

 

[Adarsh]

I'm not saying the South African openers have done any better. I'm just saying Sehwag has been made to look pretty ordinary, albeit by an excellent bowler like Steyn who has been good enough to exploit his weakness.

Now for Smith...we all know he has a god awful technique with that closed bat face. Credit to him he's managed to score a lot of runs despite that, but I'm just surprised more bowlers haven't found him out. Mind you it takes a lot of skill to exploit someone's weakness. Bowlers have tried to swing it back in to him, away and failed but Zaheer's got it spot on. Same with Steyn vs Sehwag....everyone knows he doesn't move his feet and a lot of bowlers have tried to exploit that and failed but Steyn's succeeded.

I think Smith's been lucky other bowlers haven't sorted him out, and likewise maybe Sehwag's similarly lucky. Thing is, one's technique is developed over years till they are successful. It can clearly be seen that Smith and Sehwag have techniques that can be exposed, but since it's brought them more runs than not, they've stuck with it. This isn't an open invitation to start slagging the Indian performance/Sehwag again, but he does need to improve his technique on lively tracks because it's during times like these that a traditional opener like a Gavaskar would be highly valued.

However, give credit where credit's due. The term flat-track bully is easily brandished but is it not important to win games in the subcontinent ? You can have a solid technique and all that, but if that means it results in you not having as much of an impact as Sehwag can have then perhaps that needs to change too. Why haven't other players smacked a strike rate of 80+ with an average of 54 in India ? The way he turns games on his head is incredible ! India's win against England in Chennai comes to mind for an example. Having a solid technique is well and good, but if that means you don't strike at 80+ with a high average in India then simply put, you aren't as good as him at home. He's arguably the best player in the subcontinent, and he may not be as good as that away. But then I guess you can't have everything.

 

[ZoraxDoom]

Sehwag's unique ability to absolutely dominate on flat tracks, or even turning tracks, while able to pull off the odd stunning innings in helpful conditions is why I'd definitely have him in India's All-Time XI, opening alongside Gavaskar.

But in a World All-Time XI...Sehwag doesn't feature in the nominees for me.


I don't remember the last time Smith scored runs in helpful conditions either tbh. He averages 37.92 in Australia, 44.98 in RSA and 35.91 in India, compared to his 50ish career average. Although an average of 72.2 in England (with 1083 runs) is pretty impressive. He's cashed in a fair bit in WI too, good records in NZ and Bang too.

Probably will look into his career a bit more indepth later...

 

[pcfan123]

Yea but no one touts Smith the way people tout Sehwag as some sort of genius.

 

[ZoraxDoom]

You just gotta learn to ignore those types of fans Mark.

 

[War]

I'm not saying the South African openers have done any better. I'm just saying Sehwag has been made to look pretty ordinary, albeit by an excellent bowler like Steyn who has been good enough to exploit his weakness.

Now for Smith...we all know he has a god awful technique with that closed bat face. Credit to him he's managed to score a lot of runs despite that, but I'm just surprised more bowlers haven't found him out. Mind you it takes a lot of skill to exploit someone's weakness. Bowlers have tried to swing it back in to him, away and failed but Zaheer's got it spot on. Same with Steyn vs Sehwag....everyone knows he doesn't move his feet and a lot of bowlers have tried to exploit that and failed but Steyn's succeeded.

I think Smith's been lucky other bowlers haven't sorted him out, and likewise maybe Sehwag's similarly lucky. Thing is, one's technique is developed over years till they are successful. It can clearly be seen that Smith and Sehwag have techniques that can be exposed, but since it's brought them more runs than not, they've stuck with it. This isn't an open invitation to start slagging the Indian performance/Sehwag again, but he does need to improve his technique on lively tracks because it's during times like these that a traditional opener like a Gavaskar would be highly valued.

However, give credit where credit's due. The term flat-track bully is easily brandished but is it not important to win games in the subcontinent ? You can have a solid technique and all that, but if that means it results in you not having as much of an impact as Sehwag can have then perhaps that needs to change too. Why haven't other players smacked a strike rate of 80+ with an average of 54 in India ? The way he turns games on his head is incredible ! India's win against England in Chennai comes to mind for an example. Having a solid technique is well and good, but if that means you don't strike at 80+ with a high average in India then simply put, you aren't as good as him at home. He's arguably the best player in the subcontinent, and he may not be as good as that away. But then I guess you can't have everything.

Firstly on Smith his technique has been exposed before. I remember ENGs 2004 tor to SA & Matthew Hoggard was totally owning him with inswingers.

Also 2005/06 6 tests vs AUS when Lee/Clark where all over him with that tactics as well.

Smith however started to show improvements in those areas around the 2008 tour to ENG. Its just that since while he has handled other quality new-ball bowlers/bowling well - Zaheer has been able to consistently trouble him.



Secondly on the FTB point. As i've always said, being a FTB is not a compliment - its a stain on a batsman career & reputation. Being able to smoke joke attack (& one of two good attacks) on the SC roads at the that Sehwag has done in his career is not a big deal IMO. Since you dont have score score a double hundred @ a run-a-ball to win your teams tests in the sub-continent or set-up tests. Before Sehwag started doing that, many batsmen local & foreign have scored runs @ similar averages in IND/PAK/SRI much slower & have won tests in the SC.

He cant get away with no being able to score runs overseas in places like SA, ENG, AUS (maybe WI again) againts quality new-ball bowling. Since as you said as well its only runs in those conditions that the great openers in test history performances like Gavaskar, Greendige, Hutton, Richards, Haynes, Hayden, Lawry, Simpson, Boycott, Gooch, H Mohammad, Anwar, Hunte, Taylor etc etc etc are remembered for. Not their runs on a roads.