Tendulkar, Sehwag stun with tons

The last time India toured South Africa, it walked into a sucker punch. After a three-day game on a wicket slower than anything the tourists could have found back home, they came up against extreme pace on a lightning fast Durban track -- and got snookered.

History almost repeated itself this time round. With a washed out three-day warm-up game behind them, the Indians found themselves put in by Shaun Pollock on a wicket with grass and a fair bit of juice from recent rains. The difference between then and now, though, can be summed up in two words: Allan Donald.

Then, the premier Protean fast bowler was at the peak of his powers. Now, recuperating from injury, Donald could only watch from the vantage point of the commentary box as a less than impressive South African attack was taken to the cleaners by Sachin Tendulkar, on his third tour of these parts, and Virendra Sehwag -- being seen, in some quarters, as Sachin Mark II -- making his Test debut.

The two came together in the 21st over, with four Indian frontline batsmen back in the hut and the prospect of another rout looming. And turned on an exhibition of free-flowing shot-making that turned the game around on its axis and, in the process, put the Donald-less attack in its true perspective.

India went into the game with a lineup that was almost dictated to it. Connor Williams hasn't had a bat in anger on this tour so far, which meant that Rahul Dravid had to open with S S Das -- and Sehwag came into the middle order.

Harbhajan Singh, meanwhile, is out with a mysterious ailment. The team manager says he wore someone else's box and got some infection; skipper Ganguly says the offie got hit in the box in the nets.

Whatever, that meant India had to go in with its three frontline pacemen in Srinath, Zaheer Khan and Ashish Nehra, with Anil Kumble as the sole regular spinner and Sehwag and Tendulkar as non-regular support acts.

Morning Session

Ask the Indian team and they will fill you with theory -- play it session by session, on day one of a Test see off the new ball, make sure you get to lunch without loss of wickets... They know it all.

Come the time to put it into practice, though, and it's a different story -- batsman after batsman seemed in a hurry to get back to the hut, with the result that after 20 overs and a bit, the home team was sitting pretty with four wickets for 68 runs.

Rahul Dravid, India's technician, found himself all at sea against an incisive opening spell by Pollock. There was, about his play, a touch of nerves as well -- it almost made you wonder if, despite all recent signs that he would get the job, Dravid hadn't quite done his mental homework.

The first hint of trouble came when Pollock made one bend back a long way, catching Dravid by surprise as the batsman went back without offering a shot. Height saved the opener from the LBW appeal -- but an over later, Pollock produced the same ball, only this time a touch outside off. Dravid, seemingly shaken by the previous escape, pushed at it, and Jacques Kallis at slip completed the formalities.

Das was circumspect. He always is. What he seemed to have forgotten, though, is his ability to move the strike around, to ease the pressure off himself by working the ball around for singles. Here, he remained static, both in terms of foot movement and scoring -- and perished to the kind of injudicious shot you play only when you realise you have been there too long, with too little to show for it. A short ball from Mornantau Hayward had him, both feet off the ground, looking to force square to a delivery he could have easily let go, only to get the thick inner edge back on to the stumps.

V V S Laxman, in at number three, played as if the layoff, and his recent knee surgery, had happened to someone else. The ball went nicely off the middle of the bat, line and length seemed irrelevant to the shots he played, off front foot and back. It is a Laxman thing, that. He will go back to a good length ball and drive, he will pull short of length off the front foot, he'll pretty much throw the rule book to the winds, and look very good doing it.

So perhaps you can't really say too much to the shot he played -- a waft at a short delivery from Hayward that caught the glove en route to Mark Boucher behind the stumps. More so as, not so long before, he had latched on to a similar delivery and pulled firmly for six. The innings was a cameo -- and like all cameos, was pretty. And, from the Test's scheme of things, pretty insignificant.

Ganguly has in his last 10 Tests averaged just a touch over 25, despite his awesome form in one-dayers. Today was for him a mixed bag. On the one hand, he learnt that wife Dona had given birth to a baby daughter. On the other, he learnt that his vulnerability to the short ball persists.

When Kallis banged one down in the 21st over, the commentator of the time remarked that "Ganguly was surprised by a rising delivery". I wonder why. A bouncer was the first ball he got. And with fast bowlers around the world catching on that the Indian captain rules the off side, the only surprise would have been if Ganguly had NOT got the bouncer.

In the event, this one was short, quick, and lifting on leg and middle. Ganguly swayed back and fended at it. Second and third slip converged on the ball -- and then Gary Kirsten, from gully, came racing in to fling himself headlong and snatch a blinder almost from the hands of the slips.

Tendulkar, on his entry, had shown signs that he wanted to defend, play a careful innings. The departure of his captain -- and the realisation that he was left with two debutants and a tail -- made him shift gears with startling abruptness.

Mkhaya Ntini happened to be introduced into the attack just then -- and felt the weight as Tendulkar slashed him over point, then cut the next ball for four, flicked a brace on leg, then deliberately got under a lifting delivery and helped it over slips (a shot he played time and again today) to third man for four more.

From then on, it was mayhem as Tendulkar cut loose. His first 20 deliveries had produced nine runs. When India went in to lunch, he was batting 43 off just 45 deliveries, in a team score of 123/4 in 27 overs. Sehwag merely had to stay there, as Tendulkar, farming the strike, played the dominant role in a partnership of 55 off 55 balls that took India in on 123/4 in 27 overs.

Post-lunch session

On India's last tour of South Africa, Tendulkar and Mohammed Azharuddin had combined in an incredible assault that fetched 176 runs in the post-lunch session of the second Test at Newlands.

The Tendulkar-Sehwag association was not, in terms of tally, on the same scale. But from the point of view of the Test and the series, this one could be far more valuable. In Newlands, the blitz was an act of defiance, a boy-on-burning-bridge act. Even as we watched and marvelled, we knew how the story would end.

Here, as the partnership grew in stature, it changed the whole complexion of the game. Suddenly, it was the Protean attack that looked toothless. It was Pollock who was reduced to shrugging his shoulders in helplessness as the runs cascaded.

Tendulkar, without ever seeming to be in a hurry, played every shot in the book and then some -- particularly those calculated lifts over slips each time Pollock did away with third man. And initially, in this session, he also went out of his way to farm the strike and shield his inexperienced partner.

But the real cynosure, for me, was Sehwag. It is never easy playing your debut Test. It is even harder when you are doing it on foreign soil. Coming in with four senior batsmen back in the hut and nothing much on the board adds to the degree of difficulty. And yet, the youngster showed no sign of nerves. When he managed to get a few balls to face, they were handled with placid confidence -- crisp shots to the balls that deserved it, calm defence when called for.

Once he had shown his senior partner that he didn't need mollycoddling, Tendulkar was content to do his own thing and let Sehwag do his. The latter confidently spotted a slower yorker in the 32nd over and clipped it through cover point for four to bring up the 150. The 100 of the partnership came soon thereafter off just 98 balls, India 168/4 in the 37th over with Sehwag 21 to Tendulkar's 77.

In the next over, Tendulkar brought up his 7000th Test run in his 85th Test and 136th innings -- only the second Indian past the landmark, but then it has seemed so inevitable for so long now that it passed almost unnoticed.

The 200 came up off the 43rd over and two overs later, a short arm pull got Tendulkar to another landmark -- his 26th Test century, and his third on South African soil. (Wasn't something being said about his inability to score abroad? In ODIs, the criticism is justified -- but then, it does beg the question: what is the real test of a batsman?)

Sehwag, shortly thereafter, produced an off drive off Kallis as elegant as any shot Tendulkar had played all day to bring up the 150 of the partnership -- off just 162 deliveries. More than anything else, it was the sheer pace of run-scoring that was hurting the South Africans and threatening to take the game completely away from them.

The Proteas' problems were compounded by the fact that barring Pollock, none of the others looked even remotely incisive. And Pollock's captaincy by rote, teaming bowlers in pairs and letting them bowl six before making the next change, did nothing to stem the rot.

Sehwag brought up his own 50 with a crashing off drive off Hayward, off just 83 deliveries, and the session saw India score 132 runs off just 143 deliveries.

Post-tea session

When play resumed, it was almost as if the Indians had told themselves, hey, hang on a minute, we have turned the game around, now maybe it is time to throttle back and grind the Proteas down into the dust.

Thus, both batsmen throttled back, cutting down on the frenetic pace of run-getting and playing with more caution. Neither looked in any sort of trouble, and when the wicket came, it was almost anti-climactic.

Ntini, who had been dismissed in each of his earlier spells by Tendulkar and Sehwag, bowled a nothing ball that was a tad short and going to leg. Tendulkar swung into a pull, but the ball slowed down off the deck with the result that the shot went off the toe of the bat, to Neil McKenzie on the line at deep backward square. Tendulkar had made 155 off 184 balls, with 23 fours and a six. When he left, at the end of an outstanding 220-run partnership that gave the initiative back to India, the batting side was 288/5 and almost out of the woods.

Almost, because if the Proteas could have crashed through debutant Dasgupta and the tail, India could have been bundled out for just around the 300 mark. If that script didn't play, the credit goes entirely to Sehwag. Once Tendulkar left, the newcomer took over, visibly rising in stature, guiding Dasgupta along, taking as much of the strike as he could and upping the tempo of his run-scoring.

No bowler was spared, and the cuts and drives were remarkable for their execution as Sehwag raced to his century off 157 deliveries -- the first Indian, incidentally, to score a hundred on debut since Sourav Ganguly's innings in 1996, at Lord's against England.

It was, finally, left to Pollock -- the only bowler of real class on the day -- to terminate an innings that had done much to put India in a position of strength. A tired Sehwag went forward rather than back to a fullish length delivery with the second new ball that seamed in at pace and went through the gate; Sehwag gone for 105 off 173 with 19 fours, 351/6 the score at that point.

Dasgupta then rubbed it in, playing with confidence towards the fag end of the day and adding runs to a board already brimful of it.

What hurt South Africa on the day was inconsistent bowling. They were too short and too wide too often, and in Tendulkar and Sehwag they found two batsmen who never let an opportunity to score go by, vide the incredible number of fours hit in course of the innings.

Having inserted India, the home team needed to have wrapped the innings up for around 250 or so in order to have the initiative. Now, with a sizeable score on the boards to chase, and with a sufficiency of grass still on the deck, the pressure is on the home side.

Detailed Scorecard: Indian innings

India's tour of South Africa: Complete coverage