SAfrica set India a 340-run target to win 3rd Test

The series is locked 1-1.

Brief Scores:

South Africa 1st innings: 362 all out

India 1st innings: 364 all out

South Africa 2nd innings: 341 all out in 102 overs (Jacques Kallis 109 not out,Mark Boucher 55; Harbhajan Singh 7/120).

Turbanator strikes,leaves South Africa tottering

Team India have been put in a very strong position extremely early on day 4 of the Cape Town Test,courtesy The Turbanator.

Harbhajan Singh’s first over itself yielded results – the first over of the day was bowled by Sreesanth – in the form of the wicket of Petersen.

Harbhajan took just five deliveries before effecting yet another breakthrough after having taken the only two wickets to fall yesterday. And the best part about the bowling,indicating his superiority over the SAfrican batsmen,was his accuracy and ability to turn the ball,get purchase from the wicket and even get some bounce a la Anil Kumble. The cherry on top for Harbhajan and most Indians is the is the fact that all the dismissed batsmen failed to connect their bat with the ball! The four dismissals were either LBW or bowled.

Petersen was out LBW to a fine piece of bowling where he bamboozled the batsman into a false stroke towards the legside to a sharply turning ball from bowlers’ footmarks on the offside. He was hit on the pads and the umpire had no hesitation in raising his finger.

Having tasted blood,The Turbanator struck in the very next over and accounted for the South African batsman India feared most – Hashim Amla.

The weight of expectations from his teammates and the country seemed to have affected Amla’s better judgement. He went for a sweep shot so early in the day’s play and missed! He was bowled!

The ball was pitched up and turned,evaded the horizontal bat,to crash into the stumps.

Effectively,that should have handed the Test to Team India,barring heroics from Jacques Kallis who finds himself in the crease amidst the ruins of the South African innings.

AB de Villiers is not expected to contribute much as he has been all at sea facing Indian bowlers in this series,despite being one of the world’s best batsmen.

Mostly,it has been seen,if a batsman plays an outstanding innings and is backed by the bowlers,then that side wins the Test.

In this case,Sachin Tendulkar played out of his socks to smash a century and Sreesanth grabbed five wickets in the first innings,and Harbhajan has four now…

And was expected,de Villiers did not bother the Indian bowlers for long. He was bowled by Zaheer Khan for 13(58),leaving the South African team even more despondent at 98/5 in 36.1 overs.

Zaheer opted to bowl round the wicket to the batsman and de Villiers was not able to sort out the angles in his head.

He left most of the deliveries that were outside the stumps alone,but this one,which nipped back in,was misread by de Villiers totally (he was looking to leave the ball) and it took the bottom of his bat to cannon onto the off- and the middle-stump.

Kallis,he is nursing an injury caused by a Sreesanth bouncer and won’t take part in the first two ODIs,and Prince are the last recognised batsmen left,while Boucher the ‘keeper is no slouch with the willow either.

However,Kallis does not seem to be too bothered by the blow to his ribs at the moment,nor is it hampering his freestyle of playing.

But aside from that there is little left in the SAfrican store to counter the Indian bowlers.