Shradul Thakur lands on his feet, runs into AB de Villiers

Until de Villiers serenely shepherded South Africans through a mini-crisis, it was Thakur who had surprised the South Africans with his nagging outswingers and leg cutters, and once de Villiers came in, and especially after Thakur’s first spell ended, the pitch looked benign, and any trace of contest evaporated from the arena.

For those who haven’t seen him, he isn’t express pace but will remind you of one of those many seamers who regularly emerge from Australia — heavy-set, lots of shoulder in the action, will run in with purpose all day, and possesses the “heavy ball” as the term goes. It’s heartening to see Thakur’s development in the last couple of years; he is the poster boy for Ranji Trophy in this country.

Three years back, he was just a chubby bowler who had a bit of pace but not much else. A year later, the extra kilos — 13 kgs — were shed. Then, a season later, the cricketing brain started to develop. From running in and just trying to bounce out the domestic batsmen, he started to show other traits — he always had a useful outswinger but now it started to fit in with a plan and purpose. He then developed the incoming delivery, and the ability to reverse a bit, and suddenly Mumbai had a bowler who was fit, who learnt to control his outswinger and use his bouncers more effectively.

In Zaheer Khan’s guidance, he started to learn about the different demands that each session of play requires of a fast bowler. Little tricks started to come through. In Chennai once, on a turner, he showed the ability to bowl a slew of off-cutters. And unlike some of the bowlers going around in the country, he can get the ball to move around a touch in the mid-130’s and more than useful with the bat.

On Saturday, with a bit of moisture on the track assisting him, he took a big step-up in his career with a good first spell against international batsmen. His mini-spell against Hashim Amla was the highlight. He hit the bat hard, banged in a bouncer or two, hit the off-stump area, before he got one fuller than the rest. Amla was sucked into the forward prod but the ball curved away to fly off the edge to first slip. Just before that, he had got the incoming delivery working in his fourth delivery of the day to trap Faf du Plessis in front though the batsman suggested he had got an edge.

He had impressed in his brief spell on Friday evening also. The left-handed opener Stiaan Van Zyl was peppered with short ones aimed at the rib cage to cause enough discomfort and awkward stabs that would have piped up interest in the Indian team, if the word gets around through Pujara or Rahul. Soon, he went round the stumps, and slipped in a full delivery to force a faulty drive from van Zyl that was caught at gully.

It was a day where Thakur, who used to leave home at 3.30 am to traverse the 100 kms to reach Mumbai for cricket practice as a boy, would have felt that all that effort had amounted for something.

For their part, South Africa wouldn’t necessarily fret too much even though they were wobbling at 57 for 5 but at least they would have learned tiny lessons from the game. Like how they can’t focus too much on the potential tussle against spinners and relax against the pacers. They might not start fussing yet but might just begin to acknowledge the dip in form of Hashim Amla, who hit the nets for a long batting session at the end of the game.

South Africa rested the pacers, and only used the spinners for 30 overs in India’s second innings and Pujara, who had promoted himself as opener ahead of Unmukt Chand, and Rahul got to spend some time in the middle. It was also a day where South Africans would have seen, again, how much de Villiers is loved in this country. A small crowd that had gathered was chanting ‘A B, A B’. Soon, they started to scream out the other players’ names as well. It’s a team that is well-liked, but it’s obviously de Villiers that they really adore.

And though he didn’t quite pull out the shots they like to see from him, he kept them interested with some classy batting. Graceful drives, fierce cuts, nonchalant pulls, the wristy whips and the twinkling feet – all made their presence as he saved the blushes for South Africa.

Brief scores: Board President’s XI 296 & 92 for no loss (KL Rahul 43 n.o., C Pujara 49 n.o.) drew with South Africa 302 (AB de Villiers 112, D Vilas 58, D Steyn 37; S Thakur 4/70, Jayant Yadav 2/37, Kuldeep Yadav 2/24).