That middle session of 2 for 145 is perhaps the most ordinary India have looked with the ball in the first innings of a Test match since Lord’s 2018.
Back then they had been rolled over for 107, which does reduce the control you can exert on the opposition by a significant measure. Here India’s 245 seemed above par at the moment the innings ended because even the 67-over ball seamed around and went past the inside edge of a batter, who was on 101 off 137.
Even when India started with the ball, it moved around heaps. Jasprit Bumrah had to keep starting further and further down the leg side because the ball was moving so much it was missing the edge of the left-hand batter. Mohammed Siraj replicated to Aiden Markram the unplayable delivery Kagiso Rabada bowled to Virat Kohli.
In such conditions, looking at the strength of India’s attacks in recent years, it wouldn’t have been unreasonable to expect them to get India a first-innings lead. And yet here they were, conceding all but 100 of their runs in one session without looking threatening.
Let’s firstly look at all that has not gone India’s way. The toss gave South Africa the best conditions to bowl in, and the pitch did seem to ease out in the second session of day two. India still bowled much better with the new ball than the hosts. In their first spells, India’s new-ball bowlers went past or took the edge of the bat 26 times in 11 overs. It takes an extraordinary amount of luck to be just one down amid such persistent interrogation of your technique.
It can be argued that India perhaps didn’t bowl full enough and thus kept missing the edge, but these were also conditions where the ball didn’t quite nip from a full length. South Africa, by comparison, hardly bowled full with the new ball, drew just 17 mistakes in the first 11.1 overs, and had three wickets to show for it.
If anything, you could perhaps fault them for not moving around the wicket sooner than the seventh over and tenth over in the cases of Bumrah and Siraj. That angle, and the seam movement against that angle, makes it difficult for the left-hand batters to leave the ball. Finding faults with that spell of play is also like splitting hairs because India have had similar phases in the recent past, but the bowlers who follow have been relentless and the wickets have come sooner or later.
That depth of the attack suddenly went missing in Centurion even though India did play four seamers. It has been a weird Test in that regard. There has been some ordinary bowling from both sides in conditions heavily loaded in favour of the bowlers. For some reason, bowlers have struggled to find the right areas, and the batting from both sides has been top-class, punishing every little error.
India curiously started the second session with Shardul Thakur and debutant Prasidh Krishna, inverting the age-old wisdom of opening every session with the two likeliest bowlers to take a wicket. The first one being a shorter session of bowling, the lead bowlers had only a half-hour break before lunch, but 70 minutes off in all should be enough to have them fresh and ready to harvest the rewards for spells that weren’t duly rewarded earlier.
Now, India haven’t played a Test in five months, and Bumrah has not in a year and a half. So India probably wanted to ease their bowlers into their full workload or perhaps they expected things to happen even for change bowlers because of the conditions. Yet they could have had at least one of the two best bowlers starting the session. By the time Bumrah brought some control back, India had conceded 42 runs in eight overs at a crucial juncture of the Test.
Then again, at some level, it can also be argued that the choice of the bowler shouldn’t matter at this level. If you are playing as frontline seamers, you should be able to do well. This is where it might be time to realise how lucky India have been with the supply of fast bowlers in recent years. Bumrah and Siraj broke a long streak of unsuccessful overseas debuts for India bowlers. It should perhaps be no surprise that Krishna took a while to find his bearings, but India have been spoilt on that count in recent times.
With Thakur, a course correction seems to be taking place. He started out as a dream player in Australia, scoring fighting runs in tough conditions, bowling with the licence to attack and coming out on the right side of the ledger. He took 24 wickets in his first six Tests at 20.33, but since then he has averaged 58 for his six wickets despite only playing in seam-friendly conditions. India will probably need to look at this arrangement after this tour.
In that session, it looked like India were now lacking the depth they had developed in the preceding years. At tea, the change bowlers had conceded 100 runs in 20 overs to offset Bumrah and Siraj’s combined figures of 75 for 3 in 21 overs.
India came back with better plans. They staggered the lesser bowlers, and asked Thakur to bowl short, and Krishna finally found a rhythm. India drew two wickets for 62 runs in 17 overs, but the bad light denied them a half hour in helpful conditions, which would have also taken them closer to the new ball in the morning session. That post-tea phase has kept India in the game, but they will know they can’t afford indifferent sessions of tactics and execution in such seamer-friendly conditions.