India vs South Africa 3rd Test, Day 2: Hashim Amla shuffles, India reshuffle

Hashim Amla’s technical adjustment made it look like he was playing on a different — and less treacherous — surface. He made 61 off 121 balls as SA took a slender lead. (Source: Reuters)

There was a lot of Steve Smith in Hashim Amla’s batting at Wanderers on Thursday. He took a leg-stump guard, stood a step outside the crease, had an exaggerated back and across trigger and ended up playing every ball either while he was parked on the off-stump or even outside it.

Against a five-pronged pace attack with talent for swinging the ball both ways, making it sit up from good length and moving it off the pitch; Amla became the highest run-scorer so far in the Test played on a pitch with cracks that were getting wider, longer and meaner with each passing hour, stealing the surface of its consistency.

Cheteshwar Pujara, on Thursday, had called this the most difficult pitch he had played on saying how India’s 187 were as good as a 300 anywhere else. That statement puts into perspective Amla’s 61, South Africa’s 194 and their 7 run-lead.

By stumps, India were 49/1. The two teams were going neck-and-neck, the dead rubber was alive. In a Test where the batsmen seem to be never in, the survival tactics of players will decide the winner. Amla today showed that tweaking and adapting could give you a better chance to take on the conditions and the bowlers. It’s the edge that an odds-knowing punter has over someone who over-estimates his gut-feeling.

By the time, Amla had come to the crease, the Indian pacers — Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Ishant Sharma — were bowling at least a couple of “unplayable” deliveries every over. Overnight batsmen, opener Dean Elgar and night watchman Kagiso Rabada were barely surviving. Their bats seemed like a rolled up tabloid, the ball, meanwhile, was a buzzing bee on steroids. The connections were very few, rarely decisive.

Before Amla took the field, Elgar and Kagiso faced 38 balls between them but could connect just 8 with the middle of their bats. Most balls would miss the bat by a whisker, or the edge wouldn’t travel to a fielder. Finally, Elgar’s luck ran out as he couldn’t keep a Bhuvneshwar Kumar ball down. He was caught behind for 4 from 40 balls.

Amla would come to the pitch with a plan. His big back and across move to the off-stump had a strong premise. By being on the off-stump, he certainly knew ‘where his off-stump’ was. On a pitch where it was very vital to leave the balls, the move to be on the off-stump became his big advantage.

Risks and rewards

At the time of playing the ball, Amla would be on the off-stump. This position made it easier for him to avoid the away going ball. The flip-side was this exposed his middle and leg stump. However, when the bowlers aimed on the middle-leg, Amla’s strong leg-side play would take care of those balls. The original — Steven Smith – has shown that great hands compensate for questionable foot work. The Aussie skipper has played around the world on different surfaces and faced the best of bowlers but still not many have been able to hit his exposed middle and leg stumps.

Like the reverse sweep and other modern day cricketing inventions, the Smith shuffle too is gradually getting wide acceptability. At stadiums across the world, envelopes were being pushed and cricket was getting redefined.

Earlier in the series, Virat Kohli had tried the shuffle, but his — like Tendulkar’s — was a horizontal shuffle, and the problem kicks in when the ball cuts back sharply. The front leg can get in the way, and the batsmen are likely to be an lbw candidate as Kohli has found out this series. Vernon Philander and Lungi Ngidi have exploited this problem.

Amla, on the other hand, shuffles but goes back and across, often ending outside off. It takes out the lbw – as we have already seen a couple of times, he was hit outside the line of off stump. Amla’s tactics worked against the sharp in-coming ball too. A couple of times Bhuvneshwar Kumar beat him with the sharp in-swinging ball but the bounce on the wicket would save Amla. Twice he was saved by the DRS because of height.

But most importantly, this movement is a touch easy (or more suitable) to do when the ball swings in as opposed to cutting back. Swing rather than sharp seaming cutters. The front leg can get in an awkward place when the ball cuts in sharply and it could pose a few problems.

Indians have been largely swinging it in, and Amla has coped well: he is the most wristy batsman on view from both teams, which makes it easier for him to whip balls curving in. Ishant Sharma would fall prey to the thought that he can just direct the ball in towards middle and leg and get his man. The ball was thrown back from the square-leg boundary on those occasions.

The one Indian who could seam it a bit, and posed problems, was Mohammad Shami, but he hasn’t been all that good here. And so it was left to Jasprit Bumrah to try cutting the ball in and Amla made the necessary adjustment there, by not moving too far outside off to him.

While hanging on the backfoot, he would bring out his favourite whip-like backfoot punch to the balls that were short and those pitched up were flicked on the leg side.

The breakthrough

However, late in the evening, after he had faced 121 balls, Amla’s Smith avatar ended. It was a Bumrah ball that was on the leg stump. The South African No.3, like always, was on the off-stump. As the ball pitched on off and cut in, Amla flicked it. Amla later said that he was planning to send it over the fence. He had the short square boundary in his mind. Bumrah, meanwhile, was once trying to bowl full and hit the stumps. Amla couldn’t as the wrists didn’t manoeuvre the ball enough to send it over the square-leg fence. The flick would go into the hands of Hardik Pandya at a shortish mid-wicket.

Bumrah, and his team mates, were relieved. The frustration of bowling to a batsman who you think you can get but can’t — those exposed middle and leg stumps always provide hope — can pull a team down. Amla was drawing the inner Smith out, was doing the same to the Indians. He must have reminded them of the trauma that the Australian skipper gave them. But in the nick of time, Bumrah chipped in. That’s when the game got its second shuffle.

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