Everyone was surprised with the nature and colour of the Centurion pitch right before the toss, as the ‘brown’ surface resembled an Indian pitch more than the ones that you are used to seeing in South Africa.
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With brown being the underlying colour of this Test, India were in familiar territory as the ball was sure to not seam around and would ultimately grip the surface after a few days of cricket on it.
Moreover, with the ball scuffing up, reverse-swing would play a huge role and Vernon Philander, who is a brilliant exponent of the reverse swinging ball was trying to use it to his advantage during the dying stages of the game today.
Kohli and Hardik though were up to the task, as the duo devised a method to figure out which way the ball was swinging, taking the non-strikers help in order to tell which way the ball would reverse.
While Kohli was batting beautifully, all the other Indian batsmen were finding it tough to deal with the South African quicks getting the odd ball to move in the air and from the pitch.
With Pandya at the strikers end, Virat Kohli ensured that he helped Pandya devise which way the ball was swinging by watching the ball closely in the hand of the bowler and then holding the bat in the right hand, if it was meant to be a in-swinger, and the bat in the left hand, if it was meant to be an out-swinger.
Whenever Kohli held the bat in his left hand, Pandya move a little towards the off side in order to counter the out-swing, whereas whenever Kohli held the bat in his right hand, Pandya stayed put, in order to deal with the in swinging ball.
Thus, Pandya was able to deal with reverse swing with relative ease.
Pandya too wanted to help out Kohli from the non-strikers end, but Kohli turned it down, saying that he was able to see the direction of the shiny surface pretty clearly from where he was.
Hardik tells Virat that “Andar ke liye hi leke bhaga tha woh, main bataun aapko?”(He ran in with the shiny side inside)
“Woh mujhe dikh raha hai, main bataunga tujhe”(I can see it, I’ll tell you)
During the last few overs, Virat was also using his legs to signal to Pandya the direction of the shine of the ball
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Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid were involved in a similar strategy whilst playing against New Zealand, when Chris Cairns was threatening the Indian batsmen with his vicious reverse-swing.
“I was batting with Rahul Dravid. The ball was reverse swinging and Cairns was beating us two-three times. We were sort of clueless because we couldn’t see the shine. I told Rahul ‘I have an idea’. I said ‘I am closer to the bowler and when he is walking back to the run up I would be watching him closely and the ball. Whichever side is shiny, I will hold the bat in that hand. If he is going to bowl an out-swinger the bat will be in my left hand. If he is going to bowl an in-swinger, the bat is in my right hand at the non-striker’s end,”
India are currently 183 for 5, still 152 runs behind South Africa’s 1st innings score and would be hoping that Pandya and Kohli can take them as close to that 335 run mark as possible.
