SOUTH Africa drew the almost unwinnable match yesterday, a fiery contest that threatened to usurp the 438 game as the greatest yet played at the Wanderers.
But, in the end, India had enough runs in the bank and SA lost enough wickets to ensure the resumption of normal service on a final day of the first Test that was anything but normal.
There were 16 runs required and 20 balls to be bowled when Faf du Plessis’ epic innings of 134 was ended to leave just three SA wickets standing.
Vernon Philander and Dale Steyn declined to shoot at the victory moon, and did not score any runs off 19 of those 20 deliveries.
However, Philander sent the 20th and last of them arching over the long-on boundary for six, marooning SA on 450/7 – only eight runs short of what would have been marketed as “the greatest game ever played”, just as the 438 match was. “The greatest draw ever played” won’t hold the same allure.
This wasn’t simply kissing your sister. This was having Penelope Cruz for a sister, and having to kiss her.
The crowd was not in a kissing mood and booed the players off the field.
The afternoon’s drama was a world away when SA resumed on 138/2 with survival uppermost. Those hopes took a dent in the fifth over, when Alviro Petersen dragged a delivery from Mohammed Shami onto his wicket to end at 76 what had been, until then, a disciplined innings.
Another blow was suffered midway through the morning session when Jacques Kallis was given out leg-before to Zaheer Khan for 34.
The celebrations for that decision, which made Zaheer the only Indian besides Kapil Dev, Anil Kumble and Harbhajan Singh to have taken 300 Test wickets, rang hollow – somehow, umpire Rod Tucker had failed to spot the thick inside edge Kallis had angled onto his pad.
But from then until more than an hour after tea, the match slid SA’s way as Du Plessis and AB de Villiers took control.
Shami bristled with threat, Zaheer was treated with respect, Ishant Sharma looked ready to strike, Ashwin’s field shimmered with a slip, a leg slip, a short leg and a silly mid-on, and Virat Kohli enjoyed a close cover point, a silly mid-off and a silly mid-on.
None of them could find a way to separate the Affies boys, with either the old or the new ball, until, with 56 needed, De Villiers edged on to Sharma.
That ended De Villiers’ innings for 103, and the partnership at 205 – the highest stand ever for the fifth wicket in the fourth innings of a Test.
Just five runs had been chipped off that target when JP Duminy drove at an inswinger from Shami - and splayed his own stumps.
But Du Plessis, last year’s archangel of Adelaide, this year’s warrior of Wanderers, was still there. Would the support he had left – Philander, Steyn, Imran Tahir and Morne Morkel, his ankle in a cast, remember – be enough to get the job done?
The question didn’t need an answer after Du Plessis was run out by Ajinkya Rahane’s direct hit.
After that, it hung in the air perversely, like the smoke of a gun that was never fired.
Proteas fail in Test run chase
But, in the end, India had enough runs in the bank and SA lost enough wickets to ensure the resumption of normal service on a final day of the first Test that was anything but normal.
There were 16 runs required and 20 balls to be bowled when Faf du Plessis’ epic innings of 134 was ended to leave just three SA wickets standing.
Vernon Philander and Dale Steyn declined to shoot at the victory moon, and did not score any runs off 19 of those 20 deliveries.
However, Philander sent the 20th and last of them arching over the long-on boundary for six, marooning SA on 450/7 – only eight runs short of what would have been marketed as “the greatest game ever played”, just as the 438 match was. “The greatest draw ever played” won’t hold the same allure.
This wasn’t simply kissing your sister. This was having Penelope Cruz for a sister, and having to kiss her.
The crowd was not in a kissing mood and booed the players off the field.
The afternoon’s drama was a world away when SA resumed on 138/2 with survival uppermost. Those hopes took a dent in the fifth over, when Alviro Petersen dragged a delivery from Mohammed Shami onto his wicket to end at 76 what had been, until then, a disciplined innings.
Another blow was suffered midway through the morning session when Jacques Kallis was given out leg-before to Zaheer Khan for 34.
The celebrations for that decision, which made Zaheer the only Indian besides Kapil Dev, Anil Kumble and Harbhajan Singh to have taken 300 Test wickets, rang hollow – somehow, umpire Rod Tucker had failed to spot the thick inside edge Kallis had angled onto his pad.
But from then until more than an hour after tea, the match slid SA’s way as Du Plessis and AB de Villiers took control.
Shami bristled with threat, Zaheer was treated with respect, Ishant Sharma looked ready to strike, Ashwin’s field shimmered with a slip, a leg slip, a short leg and a silly mid-on, and Virat Kohli enjoyed a close cover point, a silly mid-off and a silly mid-on.
None of them could find a way to separate the Affies boys, with either the old or the new ball, until, with 56 needed, De Villiers edged on to Sharma.
That ended De Villiers’ innings for 103, and the partnership at 205 – the highest stand ever for the fifth wicket in the fourth innings of a Test.
Just five runs had been chipped off that target when JP Duminy drove at an inswinger from Shami - and splayed his own stumps.
But Du Plessis, last year’s archangel of Adelaide, this year’s warrior of Wanderers, was still there. Would the support he had left – Philander, Steyn, Imran Tahir and Morne Morkel, his ankle in a cast, remember – be enough to get the job done?
The question didn’t need an answer after Du Plessis was run out by Ajinkya Rahane’s direct hit.
After that, it hung in the air perversely, like the smoke of a gun that was never fired.
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