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First things first. The South Africa-India Test in Johannesburg made for a memorable game and one that would be talked about for a lot of right reasons and for some years to come.
It was a gritty performance from a side which had lost its past eight Test matches away from home and were expected to crumble in another one in South Africa.
And it was an almost unexpected fightback from the number one team on the final day that all but clinched them the game after the visitors had claimed most of the brownie points on the first four.
Going into the last day, India were favourites.
The number of times a team has chased down 458 – or more – in the fourth innings of a Test match over its 140-odd-year history, to win it, is exactly zero.
Hence, most South African fans were anticipating against hope, at the most, a showing on the lines of what they got in Adelaide a season or so ago.
The hero from that game, Faf du Plessis, was at the crease again and he did not disappoint.
Having begun the day unbeaten on 10, du Plessis went on to carve out 134, a knock that took 309 balls and was almost chanceless till he got out – run-out.
AB de Villiers supported him with a century of his own and till the duo was at the crease, it looked like the game was theirs to lose.
Slowly but steadily, South Africa went from looking odds on to draw the game to being a side on the cusp of recording a historic win.
Then exhaustion took over – they had batted 63 overs during their stand – and they fell at crucial junctures in the final session to hand back some of the initiative.
Still, with 19 deliveries to be bowled when du Plessis was run out and only 16 to score, you would have expected them to close out the game.
They didn’t.
The shutters were pulled down quickly after that as the pair of Vernon Philander and Dale Steyn played out a quick draw.
The Indian bowlers were only too happy to test them out with bouncers and neither batsmen responded with a shot of winning intent.
And that is what spoiled the fun for many of those in the ground and around the world.
Truth be told, there are always two sides to a coin. Some of my mates were aghast at the lack of yorker-length deliveries attempted by Indian bowlers in the last three overs of the day, but take into account the number of overs they had already bowled, it’s easy to understand why.
In fact, Dale Steyn smoked the only attempted yorker over long-on for a six in that period which begs the question whether such a brand of a delivery would have been a wicket-taking one or merely a pressure-releasing one given the high probability of it missing its required length.
Similarly, the decision by Philander and Steyn to shut shop would have come as a surprise to most. Even smacked of being a defensive one.
But one can easily argue that barring the really intelligent, practical fan, they would have been castigated for it had they lost the game attempting to do that once they du Plessis fell.
In the bigger scheme of things, there was a series to be won and a record – of not having lost a Test series in almost five years – to be preserved for South Africa. Which they seemed to have done well.
But what kind of an insight does the day’s play give into their mindset? If I were a captain of a cricket team about to take on the Proteas, watching how the South Africans went about on that last day, I would be a very glad man. So would Michael Clarke.
Because their attitude reeked of a team that was scared of losing. And that’s a major psychological chink that’s worth exploiting and would have been gleefully noticed by Clarke and Darren Lehmann had they been watching the game.
Knowing South Africa’s cricketing history when it comes to close encounters, it smacks of a team that has the ‘choke’ word embedded so gravely into their systems that given another similar situation, they would play exactly in the same manner as they did here at the Wanderers; avoid defeat first and talk win later.
Now let me clarify here that I do not necessarily subscribe to the theory that being the number one team in the world, they need to play a brand of cricket that will underline their status as the best team in the world.
And by holding out for a draw instead of hunting for a win the side don’t deserve the top ranking.
No, far from it. After all, for a team to boast of an 18-6 win-loss record in Tests since their previous series defeat in 2009 requires some getting.
Instead, what I do suggest is that those last three overs have not only allowed India a belief that the opposition can be scared from a position of strength.
It has also given Australia, their next opponents in Test match cricket, a bigger sense of confidence than they already had after winning the Ashes – here’s a team that’s vulnerable and can be tamed in their own dens.
A drawn game against India kept South Africa in the series but even a defeat, while attempting a win, would have sent out a stronger signal to both India and Australia that the teams looking to win games and if they did lose the odd one in that endeavour, it made no difference to their psyche.
However, such has been the effect of having lost games – especially in the shorter format of the game – from almost unassailable positions that the final three overs of the game went along expected lines for the onlooker.
It looked like a team relieved to draw the game than get out of the park, winners and record-breakers.
Here’s the clincher though. Captain Graeme Smith relinquished his responsibility as far as the decision to go or not after the target in the last three overs of the game is concerned.
Smith explained in his post-match press conference it was the batsmen in the middle, Vernon Philander and Dale Steyn, who decided not to go for a win and went on to defend the decision.
“Ultimately the guys out in the middle, what they thought was in the best interest of the team. I think we as a team have to support the decision Dale and Vernon made in the middle,” he said.
“The message was to set it up for the last over. Then there were a couple of maidens bowled, which made it difficult.”
Seriously? Did Smith realistically expect his numbers eight and nine to gauge the situation as batsmen and decide on weigh on the pros and the cons of a draw against the risks of a win?
And the maiden overs weren’t ‘bowled’, they were allowed to be bowled because neither batsman wanted to risk getting out – they kept allowing the bouncers to float through to the keeper.
Is Smith trying to suggest that had the target been, say, 30 from three overs and South Africa were 1-0 down in the series, he wouldn’t have sternly instructed his numbers eight and nine to play for a win?
Telling the pair of Philander and Steyn to play out a draw would have been bad enough but to not chalk out a proper path for them after du Plessis was dismissed is shocking at best.
A valid follow-up in that press conference needed to question Smith’s role in the team as a captain; surely coin-tossing can be managed by one of the others as well.
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