India keen to exploit ‘turning’ Motera pitch

Although the curator has predicted a “slow and turning” surface for the match, the question is whether India have the resources to exploit the conditions with some of the key bowlers still to recover fully from injuries.

The hosts are confronted with fitness problems to some of their key men, including captain Anil Kumble, and would sorely miss Tendulkar, out with a groin injury, whose mere presence in the line-up weighs down the opposition ranks.

The fitness of Kumble, also carrying a groin niggle, and fast bowler Ishant Sharma, recovering from a bowling finger and toe injuries, will be assessed tomorrow and the team management will be hoping that both pass the fitness test.

In case they are not fit, it will further weaken India’s bowling attack which is already without pace spearhead Zaheer Khan.

South Africa, on the other hand, need to find an answer quickly on how to stop Virender Sehwag from repeating his blitzkrieg of Chennai where he decimated the rival attack with his audacious stroke-play and carved out a fantastic second triple century of his career.

Not only the amount of runs, but the speed at which Sehwag scored them, provided India with a chance of forcing South Africa on their knees in the second innings but men-in-form Neil McEnzie and Hashim Amla enured that the tourists would not be cowed down to a defeat.

The visitors feel they have found a chink in the Delhi marauder’s batting armour. Coach Micky Arthur pointed out that Sehwag did not play a pull shot till he reached 312 and promised to target the Indian opener with body-line attack.

“We had a look at Sehwag’s fantastic innings. We saw that he played his first pull shot after scoring 312. He cuts the ball very well. We plan to target him with short balls into his body and cramp him for space and see how he takes it,” Arthur said.

Planning for something and executing it are two different things and the Proteas will be hoping that their fast bowlers are able to extract enough bounce to trouble Sehwag as well as the other top-order Indian batsmen like Rahul Dravid, who notched his 25th ton at Chennai, Sourav Ganguly and V V S Laxman too.

And like in Chennai the heat factor would be another major handicap to both the teams, and especially the touring team, though Arthur said the dry heat in Ahmedabad was similar to what they encounter back home.

If the SA attack was ripped apart by Sehwag, the home team’s attack proved equally tame on the flat track at Chennai and needs to pull up its socks here if they intend to trouble the visiting team which bats deep down up to number eight or nine.