It's Gibbs versus India on day one

Let's try for a silver lining, first crack out of the box -- the first day's play at Port Elizabeth is also the first time on this tour that the Indian bowling has not been collared.

The funny bit about it is that initial impressions notwithstanding, conditions on day one were better for batting than bowling. The pitch, with its healthy coating of grass (local commentators say they haven't seen so much of the green stuff on a Test track in a long time), looked a fast bowler's dream -- but against that, heavy rains had made its underbelly soft and soggy, and when that happens the grass is pretty much neutralised, the bounce lessened.

Which is why the joke, in the final analysis, could well be on India. Saurav Ganguly won the toss and opted to bowl. Since India was going in with just two seamers, the move to insert could hardly have been a vote of immense confidence in his pace attack -- ergo, it had to have been more of a way of ensuring that India did not have to face the SA quicks on the greentop first thing.

If that is indeed the case, then India could well find it has outsmarted itself -- by the evening, the sun had broken through the cloud cover and the drying process has begun. If this lasts, then the underfoot moisture will disappear by afternoon tomorrow, and then the grass will kick in and begin to aid the seamers with that bit of extra bounce. Guess who will be batting then?

India went in with two changes -- the expected one, Harbhajan coming back at the expense of a seamer, and the other, where Agarkar was brought in to replace one of the left arm seamers. The first was mandatory, the second, an indication of how badly the lack of match practise has impacted on this team, giving Ganguly no chance to assess his three support seamers ahead of this game.

Gary Kirsten blotted his copybook very early, going for an extravagant slashing drive early in his innings against Srinath. The thick edge was palmed up by Virendra Sehwag at third slip. Laxman, at second, kept his eye on the ball and took the richochet.

Ganguly's problems began to show when he brought himself on as early as the 14th over -- by which time, Ajit Agarkar in sharp contrast to Javagal Srinath had produced 6 pedestrian overs in his comeback Test. 21 runs off two overs, and Ganguly had to take himself off in a hurry, and bring Harbhajan Singh on.

At that point, the game changed character. What till then looked like a romp in the park for the batsmen, suddenly turned into a peril-laden trek through dense forest. Even the normally flamboyant Gibbs, after a few early attempts to try and hit the offie off his line, settled down to an attritive battle.

It was, however, Srinath in his second spell who got India its second breakthrough of the first session. Jacques Kallis had gone into the shell batsmen apparently believe is mandatory in the run-up to lunch. Srinath tested him outside off, then produced a very quick, very full delivery. Kallis played a half-hearted push at it on the walk, got the thick inner edge onto his stumps, and walked back with 24 off 70 deliveries to his name.

Shortly thereafter, South Africa went in to lunch with Gibbs on 56 (97 balls) in a team score of 91/2 -- which, on balance, meant that South Africa had negated India's advantage with the toss.

Post-lunch session:

Neil McKenzie had looked in supreme form in the first Test. Here, he had to come in during that cricketing twilight just before lunch -- and face an incisive Srinath and an inspired Harbhajan. That early pressure told on the number four's play even after lunch, and the Indians did very well to maintain the pressure, ringing him around and forcing him to stay on strike against the off spinner. Harbhajan, who has this knack of spotting when a batsman is uneasy against him, ended his misery with a beautiful bit of bowling. After a stream of deliveries tossed up just enough to bring him forward and attempting the off to leg flick in a search for runs, he floated one higher, looping it above the batsman's eye level and bringing it down off a height on a very full length. McKenzie again went for the flick, this time the full length beat the shot, and the ball snuck through onto his stumps (12 off 29 balls, South Africa 116/3 in the 40th over).

The session was dominated by two men -- Harbhajan Singh for the Indians, and Herschelle Gibbs for the Proteas. The offie's performance deserves all the raves it will assuredly get -- the sheer class of his bowling was underlined by the fact that this was a grassy, first day wicket with nothing in it for spinners.

Herschelle Gibbs though was the real revelation. His mode of shotplay is unique to Gibbs -- minimal footwork, brilliant hand-eye coordination, and confidence bordering on arrogance permit him to play -- with astonishing consistency -- shots no other contemporary batsman would even dream of trying.

But those positives are balanced by a huge negative -- a boredom threshold that seems lower than that of your average new born baby, which sees him throw his wicket away just when it begins to look like nothing short of dynamite would move him from the crease.

Today, the man who walks the wild side of batting grew up in a hurry -- and played an innings of incredible maturity. His batting partners were making no headway -- so Gibbs settled down to the job of grinding out the runs, cutting out the flamboyance and playing percentage cricket to perfection.

This session brought up a fascinating contest within the larger war, when Harbhajan and Gibbs went head to head with the latter into his 90s. The batsman was impatient, the bowler determined -- and for nine deliveries before Gibbs finally got a single (and got to the other end to make runs with freedom against Agarkar), the contest was to die for.

Gibbs finally got to his century, with 15 fours in the 167 ball effort, in the 55th over. And the real value of the innings lay in the fact that it came in a team score of just 153/3.

South Africa went in to tea on 167/3 in 63 overs. Gibbs at the break was batting 111 off 189 deliveries, and Boeta Dipenaar, who spent all afternoon searching for landmines with his bat, was 13 off 77.

The session had produced 76 runs in 32 overs, for the loss of McKenzie. 54 of those runs had been scored by Gibbs. Two other statistics merit mention -- Srinath, who with Harbhajan looked the only international class bowler on view, managed only five overs of the 32 bowled in the session, and yet again, you were left wishing that he would display the sort of energy a McGrath, or for that matter any other world class fast bowler, shows for his job. The other is that Kumble got his first over of the session after the others had bowled 24 overs. How often do you see that happen? And does it make you wonder if the much-quoted comment by Ganguly, that he was considering dropping the leggie in favour of a seamer, signals the skipper's loss of confidence in his veteran bowler, at least on foreign tracks?

Post-tea session:

The post tea session was all about application -- by Gibbs in particular.

Gibbs ground on, remorselessly, building on his century while Dipenaar, recognising that he was way out of his depth, focussed grimly on survival.

The only real episode worth noting, during a session when the spinners did enough to bother the batsman without managing to break through, was when Gibbs was lucky to be given in to a Kumble flipper that trapped him in front of middle on the back foot, in the 70th over. At the time, the batsman was on 128 (214 balls) in a team score of 187/3.

Gibbs used the life -- and his new-found determination -- to grind out the runs. Dipenaar (29 off a massive 138 balls) continued to scratch against spin, but once the new ball was taken late into the day, flowered into a couple of pretty shots before aiming one drive too many at an awaygoing delivery from Agarkar, in the 86th over, to touch through to the keeper. The wicket gave the bowler some compensation for taking a lot of stick.

And while on that, you have to wonder about the schizophrenic nature of his bowling -- when he pitches right up, he looks very very good. But each time he does that, and beats the bat, the other side of him surfaces -- a snarling, moustachioed, machoman who runs in and bangs them down and terrifies everyone around. Or tries to -- only, at his pace, and with his build, terrifying is not the adjective you would use for the the end result.

Srinath, meanwhile, continued the good work when, after five ordinary deliveries in the 89th over, the penultimate one of the day, he angled one across Klusener, making it kick and dart away off the seam to catch the batsman in no man's land, bat hung out for the ball to find the edge, Laxman at second slip showing lovely soft hands on a low take.

South Africa went in at the end of the day on 237/5 off 92 overs, the session producing just 70 runs (Gibbs 44) off 29 overs for the loss of Dipenaar and Klusener, at an overall rate of 2.58.

South Africa will want to pat itself on the back for having lost just five wickets after being inserted on a grassy first day pitch. On the other hand, India will reckon it did very well -- barring Gibbs (who incidentally crossed 2000 Test runs, including five Test centuries), none of the other batsmen on view inspired confidence, Harbhajan Singh won his first battle against the opposition and opened up interesting questions regarding the second innings, and equally to the point, the bowlers managed to keep the South Africans from blazing away and taking the game under control.

All of which sets up a very crucial first hour tomorrow morning.

And meanwhile: Ever since September, when he defeated Dr A C Muthiah in elections to the post of board president, Jagmohan Dalmiya has been talking of making the coach and physio accountable, of talking to them, of asking for reports, of getting their performance assessed.

Quite right, too -- accountability is a wonderful thing. Like gravity, you need a bit of it to bring you to earth or if there already, to keep you there.

I wonder though if this "accountability" is going to be selective in nature, applicable only to those whose faces displease the board president and his acolytes? Or will it -- as it should be -- be spread across the spectrum?

The thought occured while watching Saurav Ganguly, at the toss this morning, talk to the television cameras about how difficult he found it to pick his playing eleven.

For why? Ganguly did not elaborate. But he did not have to -- the reasons are obvious. India have on this tour played one Test, and started the second. And in all this time, they haven't managed to squeeze in one hour of warm-up matchplay.

This has meant that the Indians have not been able to try out Connor Williams -- ergo, halfway through the series the captain is reduced to begging his senior players to risk their careers by walking out for first strike.

This has meant that they haven't been able, in the interim following the first Test, to give Nehra, Khan and Agarkar a go in the middle, to assess the physical- and match- fitness of the troika and figure out the best bet as Srinath's supporting act. Ergo, Ganguly was reduced to picking Agarkar for the simple reason that the other two had already been tried once and found wanting.

So whose fault is it if it rains? Why, no one's -- certainly not that of the board's scheduling committee.

Having said that, I can't help but remember that even before the Indian skipper walked out to toss for the second time in a three-Test series, Nasser Hussain and his mates have already had two days net practise on Indian soil. They will have played 4 -- count them, four -- practise games ahead of the first Test, at venues they had a say in picking (notice it is raining in Kerala and Tamil Nadu -- and none of the matches are scheduled there?). They will have had opportunities to test every single player, in every possible role, time and again, and fine tune the final playing eleven.

Meanwhile, what of India? On November 27 it will be playing the last day of the third Test, on South African soil. On December 3, it will play the first day of the first Test on Indian soil.

Would it be out of place to say that England will be more acclimatised to Indian conditions than the Indians?

And whose fault is that? Why is it that we consistently come up with such crazy scheduling? Is it fair to say that lack of match practise, lack of space in between Tests, does impact on performance? If yes -- then will this new-found emphasis on "accountability" be extended in that direction as well?

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