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India v South Africa, 3rd Test, Kanpur, 3rd day
Daryll Cullinan: 'Ganguly's innings the defining moment'
April 13, 2008
"All credit to India, they deserved the victory. Harbhajan Singh was unplayable and they got some breakthroughs at the right time. I thought Mahendra Singh Dhoni's captaincy was exceptional. Sadly for South Africa, they just couldn't respond. It all got a bit too much for them." Daryll Cullinan looks back on India's victory in the third Test against South Africa in Kanpur
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SA have a lot to learn from this tour that can prepare them for Aus series.
1st test: SA were under pressure after Sehwag blitz,India collapse saved them a lot of trouble though Aus may not be so lenient
2nd test: end of story within 2 hrs..70 odd all out..cant expect this from the Australians..no contest after such a show
3rd test: 130 odd for 1 and then the collapse...had they gone on and scored 350 odd it might have been a different story..cant let this happen against Aus if they wanna win
Best of luck to them for the Australian challenge,hope they finish India's unfinished business out there.
As for the pitch, I fully agree with Dhoni...Indians guaranteed get greentops whenever they tour so why be so defensive if a rank turner was produced
Posted by jimmyj on April 14 2008, 18:02 PM GMT
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If not India, I would surely like to see South Africa as the best test team in the world in the near future. Sure Aussie team has some spectacular players, but they are not good champions or sporting losers. This is seen in the SA team. Smith hats off. Arthur did most of the talking (unlike ponting, smith was a good leader & an honored guest). Steyn was superb and it would be a good fight between him and Ishant in the near future. Hope that will be a healthy one unlike Warne and Murali.
Posted by Grudge.Kid on April 14 2008, 17:51 PM GMT
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Whenever India wins a match everyone has only praise for M. S. Dhoni. But all the wins are crafted by the other players. Dhoni has never played a captian's knock to win any game for India as captain, neither did he do anything special as a captain. He is just plain lucky that players in his team plays the right game to win the match for India. In that case it is unfair to give most of the credit of the win to Dhoni alone. Any other captain would have won the game when Ganguly played such a splendid innings.
Posted by wrishi on April 14 2008, 15:28 PM GMT
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India have had a very good start to 2008 as have South Africa. However India played the world's strongest team away and South Africa have played mediocre teams at home and away until this tour. A drawn series was perhaps the fairest result especially given the injuries to key Indian players.
More importantly how will South Africa play in England in the summer? Yes they have some new young fast bowlers(who are playing in the County teams before the series) but they are still vulnerable to spin and almost all the batsmen's best figures are against the lower order teams in the world rankings.
Posted by francoscot on April 14 2008, 14:44 PM GMT
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I applaud the spirit of the South Africans and the friendly manner in which these three tests were played. Yes there was the occasional friction (like Harbhajan patting Prince in the South African second innings) but that is bound to happen in such a hotly contested match. Thank you SA for keeping the spirit of the game alive and we would love to host you anytime. That said, please bring Dada back to our ODI team.
Posted by Jitters on April 14 2008, 14:12 PM GMT
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Well done to India most of the members did extremely well. I would like to say well done to Sreesanth and Ishant most people forgot that they are the ones who stayed on batting even though they are tail enders they did superb. Well done to Dhoni for his captaincy. I would also like to congratulate SA for making India struggle for runs
Posted by nivea on April 14 2008, 14:09 PM GMT
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I disagree with VMSDAN. Dhoni's keeping has improved by leaps and bounds where Kartik seems to be losing confidence. In Aus, Dhoni was showing up an aging Gilchrist. I wonder why people criticize Dhoni's keeping, is it because we in India are not used to seeing hefty, well-built keepers and so feel it is something wrong?? Again his batting is unorthodox but he reads the game well and bats to the situation. He was defensive in Australia where he had to bat with the tail. At Kanpur, he attacked alongwith Ganguly because positive batting was the way to go. Above all, the team plays superbly as a unit around him and that alone is a good enough reason to keep him in the team. Didn't we stockpile Ganguly all the time when he was captain and struggling with his batting just because the team did well under him?
Posted by masterblaster666 on April 14 2008, 13:33 PM GMT
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Well played to India - Especially the old timer batsmen !
I am afraid that number 3,4 & 5 batsmen of SA were never going to handle the conditions like the veteran 3,4 and 5 of India - maybe an extra innings might have helped.
Then SA chose to bowl leg stump against India (who are so strong on their legs) instead of starving the runs half a foot outside the off side and lets face it - India have 4 or 5 better spinners in their team than our spinner.
Maybe the pitch was a little too much but the cricket was exciting and the bowlers deserve some fun too .
Posted by delpoa on April 14 2008, 11:48 AM GMT
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One point to note is that we are being obsessed with M.S.Dhoni. Agreed, he has shown results as a captain in the shorter form of the game, but in the process we are ignoring one thing and that is he is not the best keper that the country has, nor is he a good test batsman. A youngster like Dinesh Karthik, who is any day a better wicket keeper than Dhoni and is a better test batsman is gettign ignored. Besides, Dhoni seems to have his own ideas of whom to play and whom not to play, despite repeated failures. Yuvraj Singh, is a classical example of a poor test player but he is being given too many chances, while players who have been performing consistently in the domestic circuit like Mohammad Kaif are forever outside teh team.
Posted by VMSDAN on April 14 2008, 11:15 AM GMT
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So, India has won with a fair bit of help from the pitch and pof course the performance of the seniors. But,one thing will always rankle and that is it took India almost three tests to come out with something resembling the side that played in Australia. And this while playing in India. What should be made of this, is it going to be easier beating India in India? Maybe, our team is starting to lose focus while playing in India.
Posted by VMSDAN on April 14 2008, 10:34 AM GMT
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