His eyelids flickering furiously, Temba Bavuma remembers a rendezvous with Kane Williamson at an award function in Mumbai two months ago. “I tried to ask him for some pointers (about winning in India). He wasn’t too open…” he recounts. Williamson was the wrong person, because an untimely groin strain had robbed him of the historic moment last year, when New Zealand blanked India 3-0. But the worldly-wise Kiwi talisman offered a simple piece of advice: “Make sure that you win the toss.” Since then, the South Africa captain, wearing a devilishly deadpan face, says he has been “practising my coin tossing skills.” The room roared and rolled in laughter.
A favourable coin flip is among the several variables that make the longest format intriguing. “But…” he says, leaving the humour aside, “I think it is about playing good cricket. It is as easy as that, but it is hard.” In his third Test tour to India, Bavuma is well acquainted with the layered devils of the subcontinent.
The caprices of the pitch and the fervour of the stands; the riffs of its spin orchestra and the tunes of their seam act, the masterfulness of their batsmen and the shifting climes and landscapes, the subcontinent could daunt the touring sides from half a world apart. “India has given some of us a lot of heartbreak,” he said. Two galling series defeats (2015 and 2019) and the World Cup hurts would have flashed through his mind. The flaws unravel faster than they do anywhere in the world.
Some of them who have experienced the conditions might have spent hours and weeks with video analysts dissecting India’s personnel, finding cracks and flaws, must have spent hours facing spin bowling on scraped pitches, or sought tips from the wizened ex-players.
But facing them in a real match situation is a different proposition. Bavuma threw the example of Kuldeep Yadav. “He takes some getting used to. He is not a massive turner of the ball, but he can deceive you in different ways, the ball turning in and turning away. You need time to understand his nuances, and we need to keep our wits about him,” he would.
Kuldeep is just one of India’s weapons of mass destruction. If he is defused, strides in Ravindra Jadeja, or Washington Sundar, or Axar Patel, a variegated chalice of slow poisoners. The lone succour is that they probably would not countenance the spitting turners they met on previous trips. After the New Zealand humbling, India could double-think rolling out turn-from-ball-one strips. But spin and pitch are words that can’t be kept out of a Test match in India.
Every South African player and support staff member who turned out for practice had a fleeting look at the 22-yarder, but none looked particularly baffled or worried. Some headed to the nets and began sweeping furiously.
Some turn, though, is inevitable. Shubman Gill would say: “Whenever we play in India, more or less the spinners decide the game.” He is wary of South African batsmen’s spin resurgence. “They have been posting 300 runs regularly on wickets assisting the bowlers. If you regularly keep posting 300, 350, your team would always be in the game,” Gill pointed out. In Pakistan, their scores read 269, 183, 403, and 73 for 2. In Bangladesh, they compiled 308, 106/3, and 576/6 declared.
The caveat is that the turn in Pakistan and Bangladesh was slower. India’s spinners are quicker too. “Because our spinners are quicker, they offer more threat (than the overseas ones),” he observed. The black-soil pitches, where the turn is slower, would suit India more than the fast-turning red-soil counterparts, where overseas spinners enjoy the pace and bounce.
He would be wary of the prowess of South Africa’s spin troika – Simon Harmer, Keshav Maharaj and Senuran Muthuswamy. South Africa senses Indian batsmen’s spin fragilities, as manifested in the New Zealand series. But a year on, India’s is an altered batting line-up. Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli have hung their Test whites. In their absence, KL Rahul has rediscovered his touch and purpose while Gill, Rishabh Pant, Ravindra Jadeja, and Washington Sundar enjoyed profitable trips to England.
Yashasvi Jaiswal has emerged as a batting pillar, exuding maturity beyond years. Dhruv Jurel has barged into the playing eleven with the sheer volume of runs in recent red-ball outings, making India’s batting a less flakier proposition than against the Kiwis last year.
But pondering the strengths of India’s slow bowlers could make teams devote less thought to the quality of Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammed Siraj. Gill dwelled on the impact seamers had in the England series; Bavuma could recollect the havoc Dale Steyn had wreaked in the past.
Throw reverse swing into the equation, and the competent batting firms of both sides, the Eden Test has all the ingredients to produce another classic. A favourable coin flip, perhaps, is the first step to conquering India. Williamson was not being rude to Bavuma; he was merely candid.
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