/ 20 December 1996

And now for an Indian summer …

The Indians are back, but can the South African team face the pressure?

CRICKET: Jon Swift

It is the most inescapable fact of our recent cricketing history that the sides from India have become both this country’s greatest allies and its most intractable foes.

It was the men from the formerly impenetrable mists shrouding the sub-continent who led us back into the international arena in that flower-bedecked visit; it was the cricketers of India who made the first full tour here; and it was the same nation which has inflicted South Africa’s first test series defeat since.

Now, two captains down the line, the Indians are back under Sachin Tendulkar and are a distinctly more mature and accomplished-looking team than the one that toured in the 1992/93 season under Mohammed Azharuddin.

Tendulkar, one of the few who can lay claim to the title of world class batsman, had what can be described as a quiet home series. It is not a good indication of his true abilities. But it is of the roundness of the Indian side and the growth since last time around ‘ perhaps best measured by these two former South African tourists.

Azharuddin, now without the burden of leadership to cramp his elegant batting style, showed such an imperious disdain for the South African bowling by scoring 163 not out in the clincher on a track which the tourists had found virtually unplayable in Kanpur, represents a potent threat on the harder wickets in this country.

And while Azhar is here during the Muslim month of fast ‘ an important factor for a professional sportsman who follows the path of the Koran ‘ he will not have to carry the weight of being an Islamic captain in a predominantly Hindu side with religious tolerance fast deteriorating at home as was the case during the last tour.

We look, perhaps with some apprehension, for a true taste of Azharuddin’s mastery of the crease.

Another who has grown immensely since the last tour is the angular Javagal Srinath, whose six for 21 in Ahmedabad ripped the heart out of the South African batting and set up the opening victory for the Indians. Srinath has grafted guile and some superb swing into an armoury that was possibly still in the initial stages when he battled the hard South African wickets on his last tour.

South African coach Bob Woolmer was well within his rights to criticise the strip prepared for the first test. Yet Srinath, a seamer, managed to make the ball work for himself as indeed he did against the uncharacteristic lack of fight from Hansie Cronje’s team in Kanpur.

Cricket will ever continue to produce such conundrums.

Srinath, with the backing of his new-ball partner Venkatesh Prasad, and the uncapped Doda Ganesh, highlights the argument that this Indian side is not short of firepower.

Certainly, Indian seam bowlers no longer have the task of trundling through four overs at the start of the innings to take the shine off the ball for the spinners, as was the case in the Seventies when they relied so heavily on the superb spin of Bedi, Chandrasekhar, Prasanna, and Venkataragavan. The Indian seamers are now their own men and rightly so.

But the Indians have also had their problems ‘ most notably in finding an opening partnership that will be comfortable and stick against the pace barrage of a South African side with the smell of blood in its nostrils.

There is ample batting potential in the left-handers Wookeri Raman and Saurav Ganguly, the latter produced an elegant innings in Kanpur, Rahul Dravid, VVS Laxman and even vice-captain Anil Kumble, one of the world’s premier leg-spinners, but hard in the hunt for his first test ‘century.

The tour comes at a somewhat uneasy time for South African cricket. There remains the perception ‘ rightly or wrongly ‘ that when the flames of real pressure are really stoked up high against them they become chocolate firemen.

This is as unfair an assumption as there could possibly be, and one that the record certainly does not bear witness to. But there must be some nagging suspicion of a time of flux within the select group who represent this country.

There are any number of ageing players in the squad ‘ if stretching the hands of time past 30 can be construed as such. And while no one is ready to write off veterans like Dave Richardson, Allan Donald, Brian Macmillan, Pat Symcox and Andrew Hudson with immediate effect, the changes will shortly be rung.

The faces of Paul Adams, Lance Klusener, Jacques Kallis, Herschelle Gibbs and Shaun Pollock have already appeared on centre stage. There are a legion waiting in the wings.

It is both a healthy and an uncomfortable situation, but thankfully not one that mirrors the problems facing rugby, where the immediate discards in this country become the superstars in another.

All of which points to the problem at hand; Tendulkar and his Indian side. One has the feeling that, for very different reasons than have perhaps historically been the case, they are a very fine side indeed.

It remains to be shown whether it is on this tour that this becomes even more apparent.