Take a bow, Dale Steyn

We started the test on the back foot without Dravid and Yuvraj in our squad and were pushed further back with the non-availability of both Laxman and Rohit on the morning of the test. Dhoni looked sorry at the toss because he didn’t have an extra batsman to pick and was forced to go with Saha as a specialist batsman instead. And the sorry look on his face didn’t go away through out the match – from the toss to the presentation ceremony.

For the all the accolades that both Amla and Kallis duly received, it was the deadly spell by Dale Steyn which sealed the match for South Africa. It's not the first time we have conceded over 500 to an opposition in the first innings. In fact we have done that on wickets with a fair bit of help for bowlers before, so on this flat track, it wasn’t a deviation from the norm at all. It’s a fact that we cannot afford to take lightly – we simply don’t have the firepower in our bowling to consistently take 20 wickets in a test. For a good number of matches in the past, we have batted opposition out of the match or batted our way back into the game from near hopeless situations. Very rarely have our bowlers won matches on their own.

So even though we had conceded over 500, we still had hope. Gambhir had an uncharacteristic failure ( a twin failure at that) for once and then Steyn happened. With the raw pace of a genuine fast bowler and the mind of the most deceptive spinner, he set Murali Vijay up beautifully with a teasing out swinger and followed up with the sucker ball and Vijay duly got sucked. As if to prove that was not a blind dart, produced an absolute Jaffa to Sachin, which is almost a 5 inch wider replication of the dream ball that he bowled to Michael Vaughan in his debut series. While all this was happening at one end, Sehwag did what he has been doing rather consistently of late – just played on a different pitch against a different opponent. Badri overcame his nerves and settled down for a fighting partnership before Sehwag did one more thing which he’s been doing consistently too – gift his wicket away just when he is looking undismissable.

From then on, it was Steyn all the way. There was a ball change. Steyn steamed in for a spell of sustained high quality fast bowling – reverse swinging the ball as his wont – to clean up the rest of the batting order and that was that. The match was sealed there. That Sachin scored a fighting hundred in the second innings and that Indians disgraced themselves by handing a 5 for to “Lord" Harris were all irrelevant in the overall context of the game. It was a Steyn show all the way.

Now that brings me to the choice of Man of the Match award. Amla? I agree that he played a great innings but not Steyn? At the end of the second day, Dhoni defended his bowlers by arguing that there was nothing in the pitch and we all seemed to agree. After all we have seen this in Motera, Chinnaswamy, Green Park and where not? But at the end of the third day, one guy made Dhoni look like a stupid for saying what he did. When was the last time we have seen such a high quality, match turning – in fact match sealing, spell of fast bowling in the subcontinent? We probably have to go back to Imran Khan days. And when was the last time we have seen a great double hundred on a feather bed in the subcontinent? As recently as the last series – this answer would remain the same for every series!

The commentators crib all the time about the lack of balance between bat and ball. And one guy takes it on his own to redress the imbalance, against all odds (a flat track, bigger & better bats, shorter boundaries and what not) and the very same self-appointed custodians of the game fail to recognize it. It’s a shame…