The best day of Test cricket ever

Having solemnly resolved to watch less cricket in 2011, as firecrackers went up in Calcutta on the night of the 31st, I felt terribly weak yesterday. I switched on India vs South Africa, Cape Town, and watched with the kind of concentration that is generally required of people who play Test cricket, not those who merely stare at a TV set. I have absolutely no regrets: Day three at Newlands was the best day of Test cricket I have ever watched.

When boiled down to the sediment of statistics, this day will not look exceptional. Less than 300 runs were scored, 10 wickets fell. That sort of thing happens fairly often. When allowed to pickle in the jar of memory, however, a day that was delicious to begin with, quickly matured into a delicacy.

It started with an over of out-swing bowling from Dale Steyn that deserved about three wickets and came close to getting the first of those four times. Tendulkar played, missed, kept playing.

In an earlier column, I’d thrown up an often asked (but always contentious) question: Was Tendulkar a match-winner? The hundred at Newlands, his 51st century, answered that question better than any response I’ve heard so far. It didn’t settle the issue. Instead, it asked a counter-question: Does it matter?

Current trends in cricket have skewed the game towards plays where the importance of the ball hitting the bat (and, ideally, leaving the ground) is disproportionately high. Sure, that’s the aim of the game: There would be no cricket if bat and ball didn’t meet. But Newlands showed us that cricket can be riveting even through long spells in between.

Tendulkar wasn’t after another hundred yesterday. He just wanted a fight. He wanted to play what others found unplayable. When Sachin is in form, his game suggests that he is playing in a controlled environment (controlled by him, that is). He has been in the form of his life in the series against South Africa, but on day three at Cape Town, he wasn’t in control. That was beautiful. Tearing down from the other end was Steyn, the man who takes the least number of balls to get his victims in the history of cricket. He was in form too. But he wasn’t in control either. Tendulkar and Steyn tried to tame their respective beasts and, great as they are, the game let them know that it wasn’t a circus. That, for the day, they weren’t going to decide the outcomes.

Which brings me to the quality of the umpiring. To catch with the naked eye, after you’ve heard a nick, that the ball didn’t really catch the edge of Harbhajan Singh’s bat, but actually clipped his off-stump, shaking but not stirring the bails, is a feat that I haven’t seen performed before. Not out, said Ian Gould. He was getting it right by improbably small margins, but doing so far too often to suggest anything but great umpiring.

Amid the intensity of the battle between Tendulkar and the South African bowlers (they all beat him regularly), in walked Harbhajan Singh. He swung wildly at first, but this, according to one commentator, was to ‘confuse’ the opposition. He would later settle down and ‘play properly’. It was the kind of day when even this somewhat dubious hypothesis proved correct. Harbhajan got to 40, the highlight being a lofted on-drive for six of Steyn. Steyn bowled short thereafter, and asked Harbhajan to repeat the stroke if he dared. Bhajji pointed out that Steyn was bowling with a man on the long-on fence, saying something like: “Call that guy in, and I’ll play the shot again. Go ahead, call him in.”

Even Sreesanth was unable to lower the tone of the day. The South Africans welcomed him to the crease with characteristic warmth. He responded with a ‘you are disgraceful’ and clubbed six the ball immediately after.

I’ve watched several great days of Test cricket. Two come to mind right away: the fourth day in Calcutta against Australia (Laxma 281); the final day in Chennai against Pakistan in which Saqlain won and Tendulkar lost. But these were periods after which the outcome of the game was decided (or pretty much).Day three at Cape Town ended without conclusion. Like a six-hour film that had you transfixed and left you wondering: so who was the hero? Did the bad guys lose? Who were they anyway?

The beauty of day three was that you’d have to wait till day four to find out.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 7^th, 2011.