Pollock proposes, rain disposes

Shaun Pollock, who can't seem to decide whether this is an official Test match, or an unofficial one he wants to try his damndest in anyways, made the expected declaration at start of play, at the overnight score.

And threw everything he had at the Indian openers, in overcast conditions and on a pitch freshened up nicely by the rain, in a first session of play that, in order to make up for lost time, was started earlier and went on for two hours and a half.

There were four slips, two gullies, lots of short stuff -- and some very pretty shots, as India motored along to 47/0 by the end of the first ten overs.

Das and Williams both looked a lot more at ease and focussed in this innings. Williams, whom we got to see for longer than in the first essay, comes across as the kind of batsman who is very comfortable to the line aimed at the stumps. To those, he gets nicely in line, playing with equal ease off either foot. It is when the line goes outside the off stump that he starts feeling for it, without the foot movement that takes him into line.

Another noticeable aspect of his play is that he is a scamperer, constantly charging up and down looking for runs and once Das settled in, the pair ran quite nicely to rotate strike.

A very pretty cover drive off Klusener, bowling round the wicket, took India to 92 -- the highest partnership yet recorded for the first wicket against South Africa. A ball later, he was walking back -- victim of his fraility outside off, where Klusener gave him one to push at, and edge for second slip to take, ending a neat innings of 42/83. Interestingly, the opening pair had actually seen through 31 overs.

Lunch was taken on 104/1 -- and from then on, play went into stop-start mode. Some 10 largely uneventful overs after resumption, the rains sent players scampering off, with the score on 115/1 and India still 219 behind.

Almost immediately after resumption, it started drizzling again, and Shaun Pollock began rushing his over. On one occasion, he sprinted back to his mark, and on another, came in off a very very short run. All this plus the interruption appeared to have got Das shaken a bit -- the ball Pollock sent down off the short run was wide of off and not doing anything in particular, but Das essayed a forcing shot and managed to drag it back onto his stumps off the thick inside edge. And yet again, after getting a good start, the opener failed to capitalise and go on to play the big one.

The drizzle came down again shortly thereafter, and intensified into pouring rain. At the time of writing this, it does not seem likely that play will resume -- which means that weather permitting, this game has another 100 overs to go, on the final day tomorrow.

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