Dale Steyn,the return of the native

The celebrations were uniformly pumped up,but he seemed to have enjoyed that of Cheteshwar Pujara the most,sending the batsman off with a scream. The dismissal had come about through a classical setup. Push the batsman back with a bouncer and then have him caught in his crease. Probably it wouldn’t have mattered to Steyn how he broke his barren patch.

Having been kept quiet by the Indian batsmen for an extended period,he had finally broken through. One brought another,then another,and Steyn eventually end up with six wickets. By the end,his 6/100 had also brought a quick end to the Indian innings,bowled out for 334 after having finished Day One on 181/1. South Africa then wrested control of proceedings and finished in a slightly more dominant position for the first time in the series,with Graeme Smith and Alviro Petersen taking the home team to 82/0 by stumps.

The dominant finish could be traced back to Steyn’s over that began the slump. The first delivery was a perfectly directed short-pitched delivery that had Pujara fending — more like ducking with his gloves in front of his helmet. It was clocked at 141 kmph. The second was fuller and defended solidly by the right-hander. Steyn shortened the length slightly with his next delivery.

The line too was a couple of inches wider,wide enough to draw Pujara into a drive away from his body. Steyn had done just that in his previous over too. But the flashy drive had flown past Graeme Smith’s extended left-hand at a fourth slip. This one,however,went straight into AB de Villiers’ gloves.

Steyn would add two more wickets to his suddenly burgeoning tally in the space of just eight deliveries. Murali Vijay was next,fending at a fiery bouncer,after Steyn had already hit him on the shoulder two balls earlier. The opener fell three runs short of a deserved ton.

Strike three

The third strike came off the very next ball with Rohit Sharma shouldering arms to a ball that reverse swung its way onto his middle-stump. Steyn launched into another one of his characteristic celebrations. He was back in his element. It wasn’t just he who was breathing easy now. The entire team was,probably.

His three-wicket burst not only brought an end to a 157-run stand between Vijay and Pujara,it also brought South Africa back into the game. He kept at the pressure as Virat Kohli and Ajinkya Rahane tried to rebuild the innings that the pacer had left in disarray. The two youngsters to their credit seemed ready for a fight.

Rahane was hit on his head,not once but twice before the tea-break. But he hardly flinched. He even had a wry smile after the second occasion. Kohli at the other end too was tested. His response was slightly more offensive in nature to that of Rahane. He had come here on the back of 119 and 96 in the two innings at the Wanderers. He went on in the same vein here as well. The hat-trick ball from Steyn was whipped to the fence,he also played a cut and a straight-drive off Vernon Philander that sped to the boundary almost at the rate of a Steyn bouncer.

Bruised but Unbeaten

Rahane was slightly more circumspect. But having overcome the Steyn burst,he went onto play a few eye-catching shots of his own,including a controlled pull shot for four off South Africa’s spearhead. He eventually would reach his first Test half-century and remain unbeaten. At the other end though,Steyn had more carnage

in store.

Prior to Steyn’s return,it was Morne Morkel who broke the Kohli-Rahane stand with another short-pitched delivery that reared up and the inside-edge was caught brilliantly by an acrobatic de Villiers. Then just like he had in the morning,Steyn ran through the Indian lower-order. Mahendra Singh Dhoni was beaten twice by balls shaping into him late. In between,there was a moment to cherish for the man playing his final Test as Jacques Kallis snapped up the 200th catch of his career.

And then one straightened,got his outside-edge and was snapped up behind the wicket. Zaheer Khan then fell to a de Villiers one-handed special while playing a wild slog before Ishant Sharma also fell the same way. By now,Steyn seemed a lot more settled,having returned to his wicket-snaring ways and his celebrations were no longer as frenetic.