SA face the poppadom test

“The last time we came here the wickets were a lot worse — you can still bat on this one.” - Vernon Philander.

TELFORD VICE in Cape Town

WINNING is no longer a serious option for South Africa in Visakhapatnam, and their chances of saving the first men’s test against India are as slim and brittle as a poppadom.

The outlook wasn’t quite as bleak as that until halfway through what became the sixth over before stumps on Saturday, when Ravindra Jadeja came around the wicket and snuck a delivery under Dean Elgar’s bat and onto his pad.

Replays said the ball pitched on leg stump, and the rest was a formality of television umpiring.

Elgar’s streetfighting 160 in the first innings was why South Africa passed 400 for only the third time in their nine tests in which they have batted second in India.

In building his monument to hardegatheid, Welkom’s finest faced, alone, more than half the number of deliveries his 10 teammates managed combined.

The danger of what Elgar might do the second time around was the reason Virat Kohli batted on and on, only declaring when the target was 395: beyond anything any side have successfully chased in India.

South Africa were 384 runs away from what remains an impossible victory when bad light ended play four overs early, and the most important stat on Sunday is the 50% forecast for rain.

What are the chances of anything except an India win?

“The last time we came here the wickets were a lot worse — you can still bat on this one,” Vernon Philander told reporters after the close, a reference to the wretched surfaces prepared in 2015, and which Elgar described on Friday as “a farce”.

Still, closer to the truth though this surface is, it’s still a fifth-day pitch in India.

With Elgar removed from the equation, South Africa might be close to losing by the time you read this. Or worse.

How did we get here?

On the blazing bat of Rohit Sharma, who shared a stand of 169 with Cheteshwar Pujara and became the only man in all 2 363 tests yet played to score centuries in both innings opening the batting for the first time.

Sharma’s 127 followed the 176 he made in the first innings, and the 13 sixes he smote is more than anyone else has hit in a single test.

Neither has any team launched more sixes in a match than India’s 36 in this game.

Keshav Maharaj, Dane Piedt and Senuran Muthusamy won’t need reminding of those frightening facts.

“If you’re a South African spinner you need someone to erase this from your brain,” Graeme Smith said on commentary as another mighty blow sent the ball sailing through the evening sky like a dark comet.

Maharaj, a slight figure at the best of times, was reduced to a gauntly skeletal shadow after adding 29 overs to the 55 — a South Africa record for a test innings — in the first dig. A match bag of 5/318 is not nearly a fair reward for that much hard work.

Maharaj’s nadir came when Ajinkya Rahane, having swept him for four conventionally, didn’t bother turning his bat when reverse-sweeping his next delivery. The ball scooted to the boundary off the pitched spine of the back of Rahane’s bat just as surely regardless.

But at least Maharaj looked threatening. Not so Piedt, who went wicketless for 102 after taking 1/107 in the first innings and suffered the dignity of Sharma heaving a hattrick of sixes off his bowling.

Muthusamy made a decent enough debut, not least because he used up 106 balls to score his unbeaten 33.

More of that kind of batting on Sunday could give him the chance to be a hero. How much more? That’s like deciding how many poppadoms is enough.

First published by the Sunday Times.