Live From Chepauk - Day 2

The Indira Nagar station had another surprise in store for me today. I had, I thought walked for an eternity once again until I reached the location of that most wonderfully isolated ticket counter only to find it absent. I was a bit ruffled, after all I needed to get the ticket. Soon, I realized, that I needed to walk down towards a further eternity. Eventually I got there. The person at the counter today was not as helpful, but efficient nevertheless.

I planned to attend the afternoon sessions today ostensibly to prove to myself that I was spending some time at work and to leave open the opportunity to report to my advisor. India had been suffering at the hands of South Africa all morning and the situation hadn’t changed much by the time I reached. I had a quick lunch before taking my seat. My arrival it seems, inspired India to lift their game. The screws were tightened, Amla was fantastically run out, and after one more mid-sized partnership, the tail was eventually wrapped up. When Mark Boucher went for an almighty ho-heave to be caught by Dravid at slip, for one instance I felt that the ball was going to come towards me.

I really enjoyed watching Harbhajan’s spell this evening. He bowled a very good and tight line, got good bounce, kept tempting the batsmen and was rewarded. There was a brief period when he chose to go round the wicket. I could clearly see the move was flawed, looking at the offside field which was right below my nose. I could see that with the angle several gaps were available for exploitation. Luckily he figured this out soon and switched back.

When India finally came out to bat, it was the best part of the day. Sehwag’s bat made an awe-inspiring sound as it stroked the ball. I have marveled at Sehwag’s shot-making for ages, and it is fantastic viewing on TV, but what TV does not give you is the feel of the weight of the ball as it strikes the bat. Today Sehwag’s strokeplay was a sight to behold and a sound to ring in the ears for a long time to come. Jaffer’s striking was also delightful.

Today I tried to focus on what players do between overs. Why is it that over-rates are so poor? Of course with a right-left batting combination things always get complicated with continuous field changes. I saw both bowler and captain make changes to the field right up to the last moment pulling the boundary fielders couple of feet closer, a few degrees wider and so on. I saw players, particularly Ganguly taking their own sweet time to assume position. In this aspect it has to be said that South Africa were much cleaner with their act, but of course this might change as the innings progresses.

The lasting memory for today will be the Mexican wave in the crowd. I have always loved this phenomenon which seems to be shockingly banned at some venues in Australia. The way it goes around the ground in circles is awesome and despite myself I stood up and joined in.

At the end of the day’s play today I waited for a bit and tried to get right down on level with the playing field. RP Singh was coming out for a bat in the nets and Dhoni was already having kids throw at him as he tried to perfect his shots. This was happening barely about 10 feet away from where we were standing. I hung out for some more time as Gary Kirsten, Prasad and Sreesanth also made their way out. I made a mental note that this was perhaps the best opportunity for photos/autographs if any.

India ended up in a fair position by the end of day and I can’t wait for tomorrow’s action to begin. Of course I plan to be there all day tomorrow (Friday is part of the weekend for me) and hope to see more scintillating strokeplay from India’s batsmen and hopefully the test will be alive and poised by the end of it.