Kallis Stands Tall

Jacques Kallis cracked a heroic century to bail South Africa out of early trouble but the Indian seamers did just enough to ensure that the decisive second cricket Test was evenly poised today.

The experienced Kallis gave a fine exhibition of skill and temperament to notch up his 17th Test century, his first against India, as the visitors recovered from early jolts to reach 227 for five at close on an absorbing opening day.

The hosts, desperate to win their first home series in two years, hit back in the last session with two important scalps after Kallis and Jaques Rudolph (61) had performed the salvage job with a 109-run third wicket partnership on an Eden Gardens track that provided some assistance to the bowlers.

Kallis was batting on 103 and Zander de Bruyn was giving him company on 15 before play was called off with 6.3 overs remaining because of bad light.

Captain Saurav Ganguly lost his fourth consecutive toss but the Indians had the tourists on the mat from the very first overwith Irfan Pathan accounting for rival captain Graeme Smith off the second ball and then Zaheer Khan dismissing first innings centurion Andrew Hall (7) in the sixth over.

But Kallis and Rudolph ensured that there were no further setbacks by playing cautiously on a day which saw both the famed Indian spinners Anil Kumble and Harbhajan Singh going wicketless. 

After the dreary proceedings of Kanpur, it was an enterprising day's cricket. Never mind the large vacant stands that was only two weeks ago jam-packed for the Platinum Jubilee one-dayer against Pakistan.

Given the dry surface and low bounce nature of the pitch, batsmen should have dominated the day. That it was not signified the splendid performance of Pathan (3-61) and Zaheer Khan (2-46).

If Pathan showed once again what a natural talent he is with his energetic bowling, Zaheer proved that his comeback from the series of setbacks due to injury is complete.

The two left handed seamers rattled the South Africans, supposedly good players of fast bowling, with their differing abilities.

Pathan made an immediate impact with his burst of energy right from the word go. If his opening spell pushed the visitors on the backfoot the very first over, his return spell after lunch was even more praise worthy for craft and control.

He was unlucky then to not get the wicket of Rudolph whom he troubled repeatedly with his dippingin-swingers.

But the 21-year old had his rewards in the last session when he cleaned up debutant Hashim Amla and then had Boeta Dippenaar caught behind in the space of 13 balls.

Zaheer on the other hand was remarkable in getting the ball move off the seam both ways, with the new as well as the old ball.

Zaheer's deception with the wearing ball was wilier than that of Pathan. And it paid when his in-cutter broke through the defence of Rudolph and sent his off-stumpcartwheeling.

There was a distinct drop in Zaheer's pace towards the fag end of the day, but then it was natural considering the workload the Baroda paceman had shared with his state teammate.

But Kallis' century, alongwith Rudolph's knock, will raise questions on the slow bowlers. Harbhajan once again went wicketless but Kumble was even less effective.

With the track offering less bounce, the batsmen had little trouble in negotiating them. The Karnataka leg-spinner adopted an outside off line in order to cut out the scoring opportunities.

Rudolph was cautious in his approach, probably his dismissal to Kumble in Kanpur weighed largelyon his mind. But the 23-year old managed to adjust his strokes at the last minute.

Kallis at the other end continued the increasing trend of visiting batsmen's success on Indian pitches.

The 29-year old right hander reminded of Australian middle order batsman Damien Martyn's prolific scoring in the recent weeks.

What was common in both batsmen's batting was the time they gave themselves to play their shots against the slow bowlers.

Visiting coach Ray Jennings had warned the Indians about Kallis' coming at them hard with his bowling, but the South Africans needed him more as a batsman on this tour, packed as their squadis with so many youngsters.

The side strain injury during the match against the Board President's X1 meant that Kallis would not bowl in the series, but thathas helped him funnel his energy into his batting.

That showed today when every shot he played was the most appropriate for the ball. Even when he was still settling into his groove in the morning, he had the self belief to loft Harbhajan over mid-on for four.

He slowed down after the fall of Rudolph, with whom he added 109 runs for the third wicket. But the runs began to flow from his bat after the tea break.

Kallis reached his century in style with a back foot square drive off Pathan.The landmark was achieved in 319 minutes off 207 balls and contained 11 lusty hits to the fence.

Rudolph (61) was the other prominent scorer of the South African innings.

The match started off sensationally with Smith, who elected to bat on winning the toss, departed off the very second ball even before his side had opened the account, giving the home crowd much to cheer for.

Smith, who had to clear a fitness test this morning after having injured his left foot in a freak accident yesterday,was out to an outrageous shot.

PTI