A Day 2 deterioration no one saw coming

More than 40,000 spectators stayed for the final two hours of play at Eden Gardens on Saturday. The match had moved faster than expected, but the scene—with a dimming sun, shadows stretching from the floodlights, and close catchers—was set for late drama.

From the pavilion end, where the ball behaved erratically, Kuldeep Yadav completed his over after the Tea break. Acting captain Rishabh Pant deployed left-arm spinners Axar Patel and Ravindra Jadeja. South Africa were only one down, but the pitch’s unreliable bounce had escalated, leaving each batter to fend for themselves. There was no clear survival guide as Jadeja and Axar fired deliveries over 95 km/h, some kicking sharply or staying low from similar lengths.

How do you bat on such a surface? Committing forward risked edges and forward short leg catches; rocking back opened LBW chances against the quicker spinners. If South Africa were paying attention, this echoed Shubman Gill’s pre-match warning: facing India’s quicker spinners was a different challenge from playing Pakistan at home, and uneven bounce added another layer of difficulty.

In a brutal six-over spell shared by Axar and Jadeja, South Africa’s batters took mental blows. Only Aiden Markram fell during this phase, but others seemed unsure how to survive. Markram’s dismissal while hesitating on the front foot left those following to improvise plans on the fly.

Wiaan Mulder spent most of his 30 balls on the back foot, handling the pitch’s misbehavior reasonably well. But one good-length ball he leaned into had his name on it. Tony de Zorzi tried the opposite approach and still paid the price—committing forward, then rocking back, only for unpredictable bounce to undo him.

“To be honest, even we didn’t expect the wicket to deteriorate so quickly,” India’s bowling coach Morne Morkel said after the day’s play. “Looking at it before the game, even in the first couple of hours, I thought it was a good wicket. So it did deteriorate quite quickly, which was unexpected, but that’s the beauty sometimes of playing in the subcontinent. You need to adapt and react to conditions quickly.”

Morkel knows about adapting to such challenges, having seen teammates struggle in 2015. Temba Bavuma was there then, and on Saturday, he batted as if he’d learned from the past.

This Eden pitch wasn’t a raging turner spinning batters into crisis; it was a different challenge, where you couldn’t distinguish a normal delivery from a dangerous one. Bavuma took a blow to the head trying to sweep Jadeja and misread Kuldeep Yadav’s googlies, but he found a method to stand his ground. He defended low, his lower center of gravity helping him on this evening.

Kyle Verreynne and Marco Jansen didn’t trust that approach and opted to swing freely, trying to shift pressure back onto the bowlers, but it didn’t work. When stumps were drawn, Bavuma walked back unbeaten on 29 off 78 balls, with much work still ahead. South Africa were 93 for 7 in their second innings, but that was only part of a chaotic second day.

What was meant to be a platform for India to breeze past South Africa’s low first-innings total turned dramatic quickly. India ended Day 1 cautiously, adding just nine runs off the last 10 overs, and started Saturday with similar restraint. Washington Sundar tried to settle into his new role higher up the order, but Simon Harmer produced a stirring spell with drift and turn, despite little help from the pitch.

Bavuma’s proactive captaincy, Gill’s neck spasm, and batting errors left India with only a 30-run first-innings lead. Morkel admitted it could and should have been 50 or 60 more. South Africa then faced the pitch’s vagaries.

“He who cries first, laughs last,” Harmer joked about the delicate situation at close. With South Africa holding a lead of 63 with three wickets left, the game’s direction remains uncertain, even as the pitch continues to deteriorate.

Hope and belief simmer in both camps, reflecting the poised nature of this contest. Day 2 was defining, but more layers await unraveling on Sunday.