South Africa crashed INDIA by Innings defeat

INDIA crashed to a humiliating innings and six runs defeat  in the first test against South Africa with Sachin`s 46th ton went to vein and all the other Indian team proved out of standard when compared to the visitors. With the absence of Dravid and Laxman Indian middle order clearly showed lack of experience and payed the price.


The miracle that India needed to save the match did not happen and even though Tendulkar (100) starred in two brief partnerships and the tail wagged for a while too, it was not enough to avert what was Mahendra Singh Dhoni's first Test defeat as captain that came with full one day to spare.

Following on, the home side that resumed on 66 for two this morning, folded for 319 in their second essay to allow South Africa to take a 1-0 lead in the two-match series.

Down the order, Wriddhiman Saha (36), Harbhajan Singh (39) and Zaheer Khan (33) showed the kind of grit that was missing in most of their frontline batting colleagues.

India will now have to win the next match in Kolkata, starting on Sunday, failing which they would surrender the number one Test team's tag to the South Africans.

The defeat also exposed the batting frailties of the home side which sorely missed veterans Rahul Dravid and VVS Laxman, both recovering from injuries, in the middle order.


Tendulkar's 46th Test century, his fourth against the South Africans and first at home against the Proteas, was the lone significant knock in the entire Indian innings.

Tendulkar added 72 runs with Vijay for the third wicket and another 70 with Dhoni for the fifth.

Tendulkar's 179-ball knock included 13 fours before he went for a sweep and missed the Paul Harris delivery which bounced on his thigh pad and hit the elbow guard before dislodging the bails.

Whatever ambitious hopes India had of saving the match died with this freaky dismissal and the rest was mere formalities for their opponents.

Down the order, Harbhajan Singh struck a run-a-ball 39 to frustrate the South Africans before Parnell sent him back. Saha and Zaheer also tried their best but it was too late and too little.

For South Africa, Dale Steyn returned a match-haul of 10 for 108.

Earlier, Tendulkar featured in a 72-run stand with Murali Vijay (32) and another 70 with Dhoni (25) to rekindle the Indian hopes.

Tendulkar and Vijay started the morning well with both looking determined to dig their heels.

Thirty runs were added to the score when Vijay, looking quite compact and sound in defence against Dale Steyn and Morne Morkel, fell to poor shot selection.

He could not resist the urge to sweep left-arm spinner Paul Harris and Morne Morkel took the resulting top edge at deep backward square leg.

S Badrinath (6) had raised hopes with his debut half-century in the first innings but he could not continue the good work and perished edging a Parnell delivery that nestled into Mark Boucher's safe hands.

Tendulkar, meanwhile, was lucky to see his glide off Parnell grassed by Jacques Kallis in the lone slip while the batsman was on 45.

Tendulkar subsequently was watchful but did not spare bad balls either. He and Dhoni rekindled India's hopes with a steady partnership and the sparse crowd at the VCA Stadium roared in appreciation after Tendulkar reached his 46th Test century.

But the joy was shortlived as Tendulkar could not add any more runs and fell to a Harris delivery.

Seventeen runs later, Harris was at it again as he scalped Dhoni, dealing a brutal blow to the Indian hopes. Dhoni got an inside edge that hit the pad before finding the silly point fielder.



With no real hopes of saving the match, Harbhajan batted with the recklessness and freedom that are his wont.

He hit Harris for back-to-back-fours and then cleared the long on ropes to score at a brisk rate before Parnell trapped him in front of the wicket to cut short his batting daredevilry.


Harbhajan's breezy, entertaining knock included six hits to the fence besides that six.

Wriddhiman Saha also tried to compensate for his first innings duck on debut with a gritty 101-ball knock but the writing was clear on the wall by then.

Zaheer took 57 balls for his 33, which included four boundaries and a couple of sixes.

Finally it was a frustrating lose for INDIA as now they lost the match by large margin with not even forcing the visitors to bat for the second innings and mainly they dropped to 2nd rank after the match.Indian team performance in this test match shows that they were no where a strong competitors to a world class team like South Africa.Indians were outplayed in all departments by the South Africa.Specially Indian middle order showed its inexperience and lost too many wickets in vital stages of the  match.Absence of of Laxman and  Dravid in the middle order hit INDIA badly. And when compared to South African bowlers Indian bowlers were no where near the standards of them except Zaheer Khan.Amit mishra just proved useless to the team in bowling department giving too many chances to batsmen to go over him.Harbajan and Ishant also proved pale in contrast to their counterparts Paul Harris and Morkel for SA.
All and all INDIA lost by a heavy margin giving their opponents to the crucial  psychological advantage over them for the next game and we will wait and see ho INDIA handles the extra pressure in the next match.And I would like to see the improved performance in the next game and if INDIA  level the series by defeating SA in next match we can again see INDIA on top of the world.Hope India will do better in the next match.

Scorecard
INDIA 2 INNINGS

Batsman India(319/10 in 107.1 ovs) Runs Balls 4's 6's SR G Gambhir b M Morkel 1 3 0 0 33.33 V Sehwag c G Smith & b D Steyn 16 19 4 0 84.21 M Vijay c M Morkel & b P Harris 32 90 4 0 35.56 S Tendulkar b P Harris 100 179 13 0 55.87 S Badrinath c M Boucher & b W Parnell 6 31 1 0 19.35 MS Dhoni(c) c AB de Villiers & b P Harris 25 112 3 0 22.32 W Saha lbw D Steyn 36 101 4 0 35.64 H Singh lbw W Parnell 39 39 6 1 100 Z Khan c P Harris & b J Kallis 33 57 4 2 57.89 A Mishra b D Steyn 0 3 0 0 0 I Sharma Not out 0 11 0 0 0 Extras b - 15, lb - 8, w - 6, nb - 2, Total - 31

Total:(319 for 10 in 107.1 overs)   319 Run Rate: 2.98

Fall Of Wickets 1/1 (Gautam Gambhir, 1.2 ov.), 2/24 (Virender Sehwag, 4.4 ov.), 3/96 (Murali Vijay, 31.2 ov.), 4/122 (Subramaniam Badrinath, 41.3 ov.), 5/192 (Sachin Tendulkar, 67.2 ov.), 6/209 (MS Dhoni, 75.6 ov.), 7/259 (Harbhajan Singh, 87.5 ov.), 8/318 (Zaheer Khan, 104.4 ov.), 9/318 (Wriddhiman Saha, 105.1 ov.), 10/319 (Amit Mishra, 107.1 ov.)

Bowler 0 M R W Nb Wd ER Dale Steyn 18.1 1 57 3 0 0 3.14 Morne Morkel 21 6 65 1 1 2 3.1 Wayne Parnell 13 2 58 2 0 0 4.46 Paul Harris 38 17 76 3 0 0 2 Jacques Kallis 12 3 19 1 0 0 1.58 Jean-Paul Duminy 5 0 21 0 1 0 4.2 India 1st Innings Go to Top Batsman India(233/10 in 64.4 ovs) Runs Balls 4's 6's SR G Gambhir c M Boucher & b M Morkel 12 15 2 0 80 V Sehwag c J Duminy & b W Parnell 109 139 15 0 78.42 M Vijay b D Steyn 4 13 1 0 30.77 S Tendulkar c M Boucher & b D Steyn 7 16 1 0 43.75 S Badrinath c A Prince & b D Steyn 56 139 7 0 40.29 MS Dhoni(c) c J Kallis & b P Harris 6 29 1 0 20.69 W Saha b D Steyn 0 3 0 0 0 H Singh lbw D Steyn 8 16 1 0 50 Z Khan b D Steyn 2 8 0 0 25 A Mishra b D Steyn 0 9 0 0 0 I Sharma Not out 0 5 0 0 0 Extras b - 14, lb - 6, w - 5, nb - 4, Total - 29

Total:(233 for 10 in 64.4 overs)   233 Run Rate: 3.6

Fall Of Wickets 1/31 (Gautam Gambhir, 5.1 ov.), 2/40 (Murali Vijay, 8.6 ov.), 3/56 (Sachin Tendulkar, 14.1 ov.), 4/192 (Virender Sehwag, 46.4 ov.), 5/221 (MS Dhoni, 57.4 ov.), 6/221 (Subramaniam Badrinath, 58.1 ov.), 7/222 (Wriddhiman Saha, 58.4 ov.), 8/226 (Zaheer Khan, 60.3 ov.), 9/228 (Amit Mishra, 62.2 ov.), 10/233 (Harbhajan Singh, 64.4 ov.)

Bowler 0 M R W Nb Wd ER Dale Steyn 16.4 6 51 7 0 0 3.06 Morne Morkel 15 4 58 1 4 0 3.87 Paul Harris 17 2 39 1 0 0 2.29 Wayne Parnell 7 1 31 1 0 1 4.43 Jacques Kallis 6 0 14 0 0 0 2.33 Jean-Paul Duminy 3 0 20 0 0 0 6.67