Muthusamy’s 109, Jansen’s 93 take VISITORS to 489
Guwahati, Nov 23: Senuran Muthusamy and Marco Jansen made Indian finger spinners’ look ordinary in good batting conditions with invaluable lower-order contributions as South Africa seized control of the second Test by posting a massive 489 in their first innings here on Sunday.
Trailing 0-1 in the two-match series, India were nine for no loss in 6.1 overs when stumps were drawn in fading light.
Muthusamy, who had scored a match-winning 89 not out against Pakistan in Rawalpindi a month ago, hit his maiden Test hundred, a gutsy 109 off 206 balls while Jansen sent the spinners on a proverbial leather hunt with smashing 91-ball-93.
The last four Proteas batters from Nos 7 to 11 added a whopping 243 runs. Muthusamy and Verreynne adding 88 for the seventh wicket while the centurion added another 97 runs with number nine Jansen. During his belligerent effort, Jansen smashed seven sixes, the highest by an overseas batter on Indian soil, surpassing Viv Richards and Matthew Hayden, both of whom had hit half a dozen maximums. The South African innings lasted for 151.1 overs and the plight of the Indian bowlers could be gauged by the fact that this was also the first time that all five specialist bowlers had to bowl 25 or more overs in a single innings.Rishabh Pant’s captaincy didn’t have a plan B and it also didn’t help matters that the track at the Barsapara Stadium didn’t show any signs of wear and tear.
While Kuldeep Yadav (4/115 in 29.1 overs) deviated from his plans from the opening day and bowled a lot faster, credit should be given to Muthusamy, Kyle Verreynne (45 off 122 balls) and Jansen for reading him well from the hand.
Since Kuldeep increased the speed of his deliveries it also curtailed the chances of getting drift which had yielded results on the opening day.
Fingers pointed at spinners
However what hurt India the most was the bowling of the two finger spinners, Ravindra Jadeja (2/94 in 28 overs) and Washington Sundar (0/58 in 26 overs), whose figures wouldn’t exactly narrate the whole story.Time and again questions have been raised about Jadeja and even Washington’s ability to be penetrative on tracks that don’t turn diabolical from day one.
The second day was best for batting and neither the off-spinner nor the finger spinner got balls to either turn or bounce.
They were trying to rush the batters but negligible zip from the pitch ensured they had no difficulty in defending.
The only bowler, who looked a bit penetrative was Jasprit Bumrah (2/75 in 32 overs), who manfully led the attack and also briefly got the ball to reverse in second session. But no pressure applied by Jadeja and Sundar meant that after a certain point even his shoulder drooped.
The performance of the two finger spinners is a pointer towards the tendency of Indian team managements — from the time of MS Dhoni, Virat Kohli to Rohit Sharma — to demand rank turners.
Both Jadeja and Washington play a lot of white ball cricket. (PTI) W
SCOREBOARD
South Africa 1st Innings: Aiden Markram b Bumrah 38
Ryan Rickelton c Pant b Kuldeep Yadav 35 Tristan Stubbs c Rahul b Kuldeep Yadav 49 Temba Bavuma c Jaiswal b Jadeja 41
Tony de Zorzi c Pant b Mohammed Siraj 28 Wiaan Mulder c Jaiswal b Kuldeep Yadav 13 Senuran Muthusamy c Jaiswal b Mohammed Siraj 109 Kyle Verreynne st Pant b Jadeja 45
Marco Jansen b Kuldeep Yadav 93
Simon Harmer b Bumrah 5
Keshav Maharaj not out 12
Extras: (B-8, LB-8, NB-4, W-1) 21
Total (All out, 151.1 overs) 489
Fall of wkts: 1-82, 2-82, 3-166, 4-187, 5-201, 6-246, 7-334, 8-431, 9-462.
Bowling: Jasprit Bumrah 32-10-75-2, Mohammed Siraj 30-5-106-2, Nitish Kumar Reddy 6-0-25-0, Washington Sundar 26-5-58-0, Kuldeep Yadav 29.1-4-115-4, Ravindra Jadeja 28-2-94-2.
India 1st Innings: Yashasvi Jaiswal batting 7 KL Rahul batting 2
Extras: 0
Total: (For no loss, 6.1 overs) 9
Bowling: Marco Jansen 3.1-1-9-0, Wiaan Mulder 3-3-0-0. (PTI)
