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Kallis lives up to his billing

You got the feeling, early on in the second innings, that someone reversed the team uniforms. I mean, the script was for the Indians to collapse against the South African quicks, and for the Proteans to power through against India's supposedly less incisive attack.

Only, it happened the other way around, at least initially -- it was the Indian opening attack that moved the ball around all over the place and struck hard and often, and the vaunted Protean lineup that struggled.

Srinath triggered the slide in the third over. A breakback at top pace first cut Herschelle Gibbs in two, taking the inner edge and flashing over the stumps to the fine leg boundary for a fortuitous four. A ball later, Srinath slipped one across at top pace, on a very full length, swinging it in late and beating the bat with pace and movement to find the pad and give Steve Bucknor an easy decision.

Gary Kirsten seemed clueless against both Prasad and Srinath -- the former in particular producing a dream opening spell of 5-0-12-0 and posing more questions than your average term paper. Srinath got rid of him with a beauty -- after a few deliveries that left the left-hander off the seam, he produced one that darted back in, Kirsten played for away movement with bat away from body, got the inner edge onto stumps and ended a rather miserable tenure.

Mark Boucher's tenure at the wicket was -- what's the word? It certainly sufficed to show that anything is possible, as the batsman actually scored a six exactly behind the keeper's back with a huge swat at Srinath that took the top edge and ballooned high over the hapless Mongia. Boucher though wasn't too concerned about the coaching manual, his obvious intention being to start swinging and keep swinging till something gave.

Kumble, who in the previous over suffered the indignity of being swatted back over his head by the batsman, set up Boucher and took him out with some intelligent bowling. He sent down some deliveries around off tying Boucher up, then bowled one shorter and outside off. Boucher saw the line and rocked into the cut, completely misreading the delivery -- Kumble had got a good grip on the seam and given it a good old-fashioned off-spinner's rip. The ball spun back in sharply to take out middle and end an entertaining innings -- entertaining, that is, if you don't swear by the coaching manuals.

Darryl Cullinan, like Kirsten, looked all at sea against the moving ball. Come to think of it, he was further out at sea against Kumble. The frustration of playing and missing in monotonous sequence -- out there, it looked like he couldn't time a boiled egg much less a cricket ball -- did for him as he tried a series of ugly hoiks to break the shackles. Ganguly was brought on, Cullinan thought he saw his chance and went down on one knee, swinging with the seeming intention of sending the ball out of Hove. What he managed to do was hit it straight up, puncturing the ozone layer before coming back down for Robin Singh to judge a swirling skier to a nicety.

15 May 1999: Jacques Kallis leads South Africa to victory Pic: Ben Radford / ALLSPORTS

That brought Cronje and Kallis together. Kallis had his share of problems against both Prasad and Srinath, but once the former went off and the latter, after an incisive first three overs, appeared to mislay his marbles and spray the ball around like a cow urinating on a rock, Kallis settled down to play a typical anchoring knock.

At the other end, Cronje appeared to have sized up the situation, stroking the ball around for the singles quite nicely and keeping the ask rate in view. Out of the blue, though, he lost it and threw it away. The South African captain went dancing out to Agarkar's first ball of a new spell and missed it completely. Next ball, he stayed back and swatted at it -- only for Jadeja at midwicket to lunge to his left and snag it like a baseball outfielder.

Enter Jonty Rhodes, and South Africa rounded into the straight needing 66 off 60 balls. India's biggest problem, at this point, was Srinath. Wayward towards the end of his first spell, he was completely off the mark in a brief second spell of two overs, giving away 15 and letting off the pressure Kumble had been building up quite nicely.

This meant that the Indian skipper couldn't be too sure of his strike bowler. At the end of 41, Kumble -- very very tight in line and length on the day -- had two to bowl. Azhar had little choice but to go with him, in the hope of taking out a wicket (had Prasad managed to gather a clever throw from Sachin, throwing to the non-striker's end from the third man fence to catch Kallis off guard, India would have been beter placed but as it happened, Prasad flubbed that one). And once Kumble bowled through, South Africa's job became that much easier.

Azhar took another gamble bringing back Srinath in the 43rd, the quick having gone for 53 in his eight overs after a dream start. Attritive accumulation of singles -- Jonty in particular is so busy at the crease he makes a leaf in a hurricane look positively static -- kept chipping away at the target, bringing it increasingly within reach. And the closer the target got, the better South Africa's prospects looked, given that they had Pollock and Klusener still sitting in the hut.

15 May 1999: Mark Boucher castled by Kumble Pic: Ben Radford / ALLSPORTS

South Africa owe this win to Kallis -- through all the chaos, he stayed cool and collected, didn't let his relatively slow scoring rate pressurise him, and concentrated on his job, which was to bat through to the finish. As it happened, he -- like Ganguly -- missed out on a century thanks to a run out. The irrepresible Jonty Rhodes pushed for a needless third to a Prasad misfield at deep backward point. Kallis -- who never seems to imagine the throw will come to his end -- was again caught napping, this time fatally, by the throw zeroing in to the bowling end, and out of his ground by a good couple of yards.

Rhodes made up by flicking Agarkar, in the 47th, for two fours off the first two balls, cleverly aiming for backward square, a region patrolled by Srinath who had just finished an over and wasn't likely to be at his sharpest. And Klusener, later in the same over, smashed Agarkar with brute power for two further boundaries.

India produced a good performance in the field, looking sharp and more interestingly, backing each other up and playing as a unit. What they lacked was one incisive backup to Prasad and Srinath -- in fact, going up against a strong batting lineup, they badly missed a fifth specialist bowler, to back up any of the top four that failed. India's batting is obviously good enough -- provided it applies itself -- to cope with most attacks they will face in this tournament; where they are missing out on is the teeth to take bites out of opposing batting lineups. And the post-mortem, in the dressing room, will center around the way they missed an opportunity to really pile it on in the last ten overs of their innings.

But at the end, what needs mentioning is that India, going into a match that no one gave them a hope in heck of winning -- certainly not the bookies, who rate South Africa five places higher than the Indians --, brought it down to the wire. And that performance should give the side the momentum to go through the rest of the league phase without too many alarms.

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