Missing Bhajji?

Even if he knows, the questions will keep coming.

Like the one from Shaun Pollock yesterday, surprised at why India’s top off-spinner was not picked for the match. Like the one from Brian Lara last June after the West Indies managed to steal a draw with one wicket left in the Antigua Test. Like the one he has been asking himself over the last three days.

Surely, they will keep coming after India banked on the double spin option from both ends only in the second half of the day to reach within grabbing distance of the third Test. And then let the South Africans, wobbling at 281/6 at one stage, still 133 runs behind India, sneak back in.

Graeme Smith’s men may have finally fallen short of India’s first innings total of 414 by 41 runs, but some of the Cape Town fans at the northern end have already spotted a draw creeping in over the Table Mountain nearby.

Of course, you can turn back and sneer at them. And point to the possibility that India’s batsmen might still rocket off the blocks tomorrow, set a 300-plus target, and bowl out South Africa on the final day on this wearing Newlands pitch. But all of us also know that such hopes always come with a big ‘If’ attached.

Then again, would Harbhajan have made a difference on a day when the double spin attack was employed for only 27 overs on a Made-in-India surface?

Sachin Tendulkar picked up the important wicket of Jacques Kallis for a crucial 54, caught at deep midwicket by a diving Munaf Patel. But his fingers answered that question with the amount of spin they came up with.

Sehwag, the second spin option who turned in 12 ‘decent’ overs, would be the first to shake his head at umpire Daryl Harper’s decision to point the way back to Herschelle Gibbs following an easy ‘catch’ at forward short-leg. But his lack of variety and variation suggested, too, that the answer was clear — always go for a specialist over a part-timer.

More so, when the man who would have been king, Anil Kumble, tightened the screws at the other end, but struggled to take wickets quickly enough on a surface that looked like it will only shake hands with the kind of spinner that he is not — the tweaker, not the engineer.

Kumble bowled 30.3 overs today, Sehwag and Tendulkar bowled 22 between them. Add another, say, 25 overs from Harbhajan and you might see what we are talking about. Maybe, it wouldn’t even have needed all those overs.

Anyway, as Ravi Shastri stressed this morning after nodding at Harbhajan, and as skipper Rahul Dravid will do after playing a decisive role in picking the final XI, hindsight is always a useful tool. Instead, what Dravid will point to, and rightly so, is that great session between lunch and tea, when India had South Africa by the throat to shake up a great comeback.

Not that the morning session went too badly, either, with South Africa poised to take off at 173/1, Smith looking like smashing through the pressure wall and Amla quietly backing up. But one magic over by Kumble — his 5th of the day — did the trick.

The first ball jumped at Smith from the rough and was fended off with the glove, the second crashed into the bat, the third was the top-spinner that sped past the groping bat, the fourth spun sharply and provoked a shrill lbw appeal. The fifth ball? Well, it looped, fell just short of the drive on middle and leg, and was pouched smartly by a diving Sehwag at short midwicket. Talk about setting up a wicket, talk about tragedy, Smith falling just six runs short of a hundred.

Now, let’s fast forward past the long stride and the classy technique of Kallis, the solid defence and temperament of Ashwell Prince, to the end of their 83-run partnership for the fourth wicket, and pause for that fascinating second hour after tea. South Africa 244/3, Kallis and Prince again, Kumble piling on the pressure, Tendulkar coming in to bowl — for the first time in this series, for the first time after those nine overs at Karachi last January.

This time, he had the ball talking from leg to off in a language that even Kallis was struggling to understand. Kallis did survive that first over, but almost got out in the second, the ball taking the edge of that cover drive, rushing to the boundary between VVS Laxman at first slip and keeper Dinesh Kaarthick. But in the third, straining to open the pressure valve, Kallis lost it, going for a slog-sweep straight to deep midwicket.

Eleven balls later, the tension crackling by now, 260/4 became 260/5, after Prince took the unwise decision to cut Kumble, and ended up chopping it on to his stumps. It was a session that finally ended with that lucky Gibbs call, and in the space of 16 overs and 38 runs, India had turned the match with three huge wickets.

But then, how long could you have expected Tendulkar to help Kumble shoulder the burden? How long could Sehwag have bowled? Shastri asked the ‘second spinner’ this morning and was told 15, barely. And that was why Shaun Pollock and Mark Boucher managed to pull their team across the fence, from 281 to 350.

But as Dravid and Smith said, India still have their “nose ahead”. Yes, it can still happen. But the question is if Harbhajan was there, would it have happened earlier?