South Africa ended their 72-day tour of India with a 0-3 defeat in the Test series. But while the losses in Mohali and Nagpur were glaring for their substandard batting display, the Proteas batsmen mustered up all the fight within them in their final innings of the series to show what unflinching resolve they are capable of.
They were facing a ladder of 481 runs with five sessions to make its summit. Getting to the top was not a pragmatic option, and the only way to salvage their pride was to balance it out on the ladder for about 10 and a half hours. There were obstacles at each step, trying to pull them down, and the quest for survival meant they would have to sacrifice on the rate at which they climbed.
In theory it was all good. But to execute that kind of plan, one needs incredible amount of patience and resolve of a monk.
The way was shown by their captain, who led them from the front. Then it was their fastest, most flamboyant climber, who resisted his own nature and stood at the other end of the step with his captain to lend his team balance. Hashim Amla batted for 289 minutes for his 25 runs, while AB de Villiers made 43 in 354 minutes. In 143. 1 overs, South Africa scored 143 runs.
Alas, when the two pillars went down, the rest of the team fell like a pack of cards. India won the Delhi Test by 337 runs a few minutes into the final session. But South Africa’s single-minded effort was worthy enough to etch itself in many memories for a long time to come.
“We definitely believed it could happen,” Amla said of the possibility of them drawing the Test. At lunch time, we were 3 down and we definitely believed we could do it. We knew the last session and the last hour was always going to be difficult.
“You lose one or two wickets and it is difficult for No. 8,9 and 10 to hang in there. We tried our best. AB de Villiers did an exceptional job in trying to hold it together for us but unfortunately we couldn't get it to as deep as we would have wanted,” he said.
Scoring runs is the first instinct of any batsman. Dearth of runs is often the prelude to a wicket. To stand at the crease with a bat in your hand, and showing no interest in scoring runs is as unnatural for a batsman as it is for a kid to nonchalantly stare out the window of a candy shop. But for Amla and his team, abstinence was the need of the hour.
“Nobody wants to block everything. You want to score runs. That's why you are a batsman,” he said. “But the need of the time was to try and bat as long as we can, to try and take the risky shots out of the equation. It is quite difficult to block full tosses and half-volleys. It is quite unnatural for a batsman.
“But when it is done, you kind of appreciate the determination shown. AB was a prime example in this innings. To try and knuckle down for the team's sake like that, to be unselfish and do what is needed for the team, requires character.
“We tried to play the kind of cricket that would benefit our team and our country. A batter wants to score runs. We could have come out and tried to score a 50 or a 100 but in the greater scheme of things, it doesn't fit into our team ethos of trying to save a game when victory is not probable.”
When the Proteas’ plan of blocking it all almost came through, many asked the question, ‘Where was this resolve in the rest of the series? Would the result have been any different had they shown such grit in the two Tests they lost inside three days?’
Amla said it was just a plan being executed based on the situation of the match, and that he wouldn’t want his batsmen to have such approach in the first innings of a Test match.
“If you block, you may survive but you’re not going to score runs. The name of the game is to score runs. I don’t think we would have changed much, maybe a few of us would have selected different shots on the occasions. But by and large you need to score runs when you bat, especially in the first innings. Credit to India, they batted really well and outplayed us in this series. They certainly deserve the series victory.”
