Hardik Pandya – Bulletproof Truth

Pandya problem bursts IPL’s banks

“Fans in lots of sports see themselves – not the officials, team owners or players – as upholders of their sport’s unwritten moral code.” – The Economist

Telford Vice / Cape Town

AS Kieron Pollard has made clear, Hardik Pandya has not lost Mumbai Indians’ dressingroom. But it is equally clear Pandya has lost the Wankhede. Conventional wisdom says getting the fans back will take the magic cure-all of winning. In Pandya’s case it might require more than that.

Mumbai have lost four of their six matches in this year’s IPL. As have Punjab Kings and Delhi Capitals, while Royal Challengers Bangalore have been beaten six times in seven games. Even so, Shikhar Dhawan, Rishabh Pant and Faf du Plessis are not roundly and repeatedly booed at Mullanpur, what used to be called the Kotla, and the Chinnaswamy — like Pandya is at the Wankhede and, to a lesser extent, everywhere else he plays.

Crowds at India’s matches during last year’s men’s World Cup sank into a creepy hush whenever the opposition did something worth cheering. Non-Indians found that bizarre. Could it be ascribed to juvenility? Or was it a symptom of a wider malaise of exceptionalism? Either way, silence would be better than the boorish way Pandya is being singled out by his own team’s supporters and those of other franchises. “Sick and fed up” is how Pollard said the treatment of his captain made him feel.

The unseemly phenomenon tipped into ugliness at the Wankhede on Sunday, when Pandya was jeered as he came to the middle for the toss. And that despite his unbeaten 21 off six balls three days previously, and having shared an important stand of 60 off 32 with Tim David four days before that. Both those games were also played at the Wankhede, Mumbai won both comfortably, and Pandya was instrumental in both successes. Yet, at their first sight of him after that, the crowd greeted Pandya with rudeness.

The section of fans who saw him hug MS Dhoni as the teams warmed up before the game did vent their approval, but the level of happy noise they made was tiny compared to what met Pandya as he emerged for the toss. Was that noise reserved for Dhoni? The answer to that question could be heard in the raucous appreciation for the hattrick of sixes Dhoni hit off Pandya in the last over of Chennai Super Kings’ innings. Dhoni is, of course, Dhoni — a hero to, it seems, all who see him play. How much of the ovation was praise for Dhoni and how much was glee at Pandya’s misfortune was difficult to know.

Adam Gilchrist made a compelling argument, on Cricbuzz, to explain why this is happening. Teams like Mumbai, who have won five of the IPL’s 16 editions, can become “a victim of their own success”, he said. Their supporters expect better than played six, lost four.

Especially when the captain who led the team to all five of their titles is hiding in plain sight. Rohit Sharma is still there; fourth among the tournament’s runscorers and one of three century-makers after 30 games. Was Sharma’s leadership also a victim of Mumbai’s success? They haven’t won the IPL, or even reached the final, since 2020. At the Wankhede, in relative terms, three years without a trophy is exponentially longer than at other grounds.

And then, seemingly forever, there’s Dhoni. Like Sharma, he has led his team to five IPL championships. Unlike Sharma, Dhoni stepping away from the captaincy has coincided with a mirror image of Mumbai’s reality: CSK have played six, won four.

Pandya’s comment after Sunday’s game that “there’s a man behind the stumps [Dhoni] who tells them [CSK] what’s working, that helps” was taken by Gilchrist to mean that Pandya is possibly “not feeling that he has got support around him”. It’s difficult not to think that means Pandya reckons Sharma does not have his back in the way that Dhoni seems to have Ruturaj Gaikwad’s as CSK’s new captain. Thereby hangs another tale within this tale.

Unlike Gaikwad, who has played for CSK exclusively, starting in 2020, Pandya was parachuted into the Wankhede from Gujarat Titans — who Pandya captained to the title in 2022, when Sharma’s Mumbai finished stone last. Gujarat reached the final under Pandya last year by beating Mumbai in qualifier 2.

Born in Choryasi in the Surat district, Pandya is as Gujarati as they come. But he played his first 92 IPL games, from 2015 to 2021, for Mumbai and was part of four of their champion sides. Then he did, for Mumbaikars, the unthinkable.

A move to Chennai might have been acceptable. Likewise to Delhi or Kolkata. But Gujarat? From Mumbai? That was beyond the pale, an insult to Maximum City. The fact that Pandya was released by Mumbai before the 2022 player auction, when Sharma, Jasprit Bumrah, Suryakumar Yadav and Pollard were retained, doesn’t feature in this narrative. Neither that Gujarat bought Pandya for USD1.9-million, also before the 2022 auction.

What does the ingrate do after two seasons with Gujarat? Ask to be traded back to Mumbai! If there was a way to lower himself still further in the eyes of the Wankhede faithful, that was it. Worse yet, it prompted Sharma’s removal as captain — the final straw. If Mumbai win an IPL under Pandya, expect boos as he lifts the trophy.

This attempt at analysing the Pandya problem comes to you from the sharp tip of Africa. Why, you might ask if you’re Indian, should what is essentially a domestic squabble be of interest in other countries? Because the IPL has long since burst its banks as an indigenous event, if it ever was any such thing. The first game, at the Chinnaswamy in April 2008, involved four Australians, two South Africans, a Pakistani and a New Zealander — Brendon McCullum, who scored 158 off 73.

So woven into the fabric of modern cricket is the IPL in countries where the game has a significant presence — not least because those countries supply many of the tournament’s best players — that Pandya’s predicament has come to the attention of one of the most unfrivolous publications in print anywhere.

“Are Indians right to boo Hardik Pandya, a star cricketer?” is the headline above 926 words on the subject that appeared in The Economist on Friday. “Mr Pandya’s first sin was to jump ship, moving from the Gujarat Titans to the Mumbai Indians. That move earned Mr Pandya, himself a Gujarati, the ire of his home-state supporters. But as part of the lucrative deal, Mr Pandya allegedly insisted that he replace Rohit Sharma as the captain of his new side. For fans of the Mumbai Indians, that act of opportunism against their hugely successful leader was tantamount to treason.”

That “allegedly” over Mumbai’s captaincy change is doing a lot of heavy lifting. Mere players, even those of the millionaire class created by the IPL, do not make such decisions. That’s the privilege of the billionaires who own them. According to another thoroughly unfrivolous publication, Forbes, Mukesh Ambani alone has an estimated net worth of USD115.4-billion. So it cannot be regarded as anything more than rumour that Pandya “insisted” on being made captain.

But The Economist was onto something elsewhere in its piece: “Fans in lots of sports see themselves — not the officials, team owners or players — as upholders of their sport’s unwritten moral code. Booing is their go-to way of signalling and punishing any transgressions.”

Including transgressions perceived by people who consider themselves keepers of the faith, no matter who owns what. Getting Pandya into their good books could exact a price even billionaires cannot pay.

Cricbuzz

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Rarities rumble in Rajkot

“The way we started in the powerplay set us back and we couldn’t find our way back in.” – Keshav Maharaj

Telford Vice | Cape Town

MARCO Jansen hadn’t played a T20I before Friday. Lungi Ngidi hadn’t played a game of any sort in 86 days, and a T20I in almost 11 months. Yet they were entrusted with the new ball in Rajkot. That didn’t happen by design: Kagiso Rabada and Wayne Parnell were ruled out with unspecified “niggles”. Three overs in, Jansen and Ngidi had removed Ruturaj Gaikwad and Shreyas Iyer.

With his first delivery of the match, Anrich Nortjé — who before this series hadn’t played for South Africa since November last year because of a hip injury, and who featured in only six of a possible 14 matches in the IPL — got rid of Ishan Kishan. That reduced India to 40/3 a ball after they had registered their worst powerplay of the rubber.

Lesser spotted fast bowlers loomed large early in a game India had to win to keep the series alive. Another rarely seen player at international level in the short, sharp stuff gave the home side a decent chance of success by yanking an innings that was languishing at 96/4 after 15 overs to a total of 169/6.

Hardik Pandya sparked a revival in stands of 41 with Rishabh Pant and 65 — off 33 — with the bristling Dinesh Karthik, who swashed and buckled a 27-ball 55. “Risks are something you need to accept and absorb when you play T20 cricket,” Karthik said in a television interview. He knows that from experience, but not in an India shirt.

Karthik made his international debut in the format at the Wanderers in December 2006 in the 10th T20I ever played, which was India’s first. Friday’s was the 1,572nd all told and India’s 163rd. Karthik has played 229 IPL games, second only to MS Dhoni’s 234, in which he has made 20 half-centuries with a highest score of 97 not out off 50 balls. But he has been involved in only 35 T20Is. His effort on Friday was his first half-century in his 30th innings.

Ngidi returned from a foot injury, sustained during his second over when he tried to stop a drive by Kishan, to end the key partnership with the help of an acrobatic running, sprawling catch by Tabraiz Shamsi at deep backward point that halted Pandya at 46 off 31. Karthik rumbled into the last over, when he holed out at deep backward square leg trying to sweep Dwaine Pretorius for six. Yes, trying to sweep the seamer. And why not: he had hit the same bowler for four and six in the same fashion earlier.

Although South Africa had blinked during the afterburner overs of India’s innings, and even though a pitch that was challenging to bat on to begin with became more inscrutable and inconsistent as the match wore on, the visitors shouldn’t have needed anything as explosive as Karthik’s blast to seal the series with a game in hand.

And a good thing, too, that that was not required. Because they couldn’t deliver anything like it on the night. Instead South Africa shambled to 35/2 in the powerplay and their reply became a procession of misery in the face of a fired-up India. Worse yet, Temba Bavuma had to retire hurt after jarring an elbow as he dived to make his ground, and when Avesh Khan felled Jansen with a bouncer that struck the batter behind the ear.

In a sign of the healthy spirit in which the series is being played, some of India’s players rushed to the scene to see if Jansen was alright. Happily he seemed to be, as evidenced by his heave to midwicket off the next ball to add to Khan’s career-best haul of 4/18.

South Africa crashed to 87 all out in 16.5 overs, their lowest total in their 151 T20Is and only the fourth time they have been dismissed in double figures. India’s victory, by 82 runs, was their most emphatic over South Africa — they broke the record they set in Visakhapatnam on Tuesday, when they won by 48 runs — and their fifth biggest overall.

Bavuma struggled to hang onto a bat after he was hurt, so it was up to Keshav Maharaj to do the heavy lifting and hold the microphone. “The way we started in the powerplay set us back and we couldn’t find our way back in,” Maharaj said on television.

And so to Bangalore, where the series will climax on Sunday. South Africa hit the ground running to win the first two games, but have since been going backwards. India seemed ambushed in those matches, but have shot their way out of trouble to level the rubber.

“It will be a good test of our cricket, to see how far we’ve come,” Maharaj told a press conference. He’s not wrong, despite the fact that South Africa had won 13 of their last 15 T20Is before the series. Teams who do that, and win the first two games of their next rubber, should know how to get the job done. South Africa have blown two chances to do so. They have one left.

First published by Cricbuzz.

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India arise to keep series alive

“With the bat, we just didn’t pitch up.” – Temba Bavuma

Telford Vice | Cape Town

FOR a while there in Visakhapatnam on Tuesday, Anrich Nortjé had equalled his most expensive over in T20Is. Then the message came from on high to the umpires that the third delivery, a vicious bouncer, had screamed to the boundary after ricocheting off the grille of Ruturaj Gaikwad’s helmet. Unlike what had been decided on the field, neither bat nor gloves were involved.

So four runs were chalked off Nortjé’s account, leaving the 20 he conceded to Steve Smith in the last over of the innings at Newlands in February 2020 unmatched as his biggest hiding yet in the format. Not that Gaikwad’s assault was far behind qualitatively as well as quantitatively, what with him slamming fours through point, mid-on, midwicket and third. That the last ball of the over eluded Gaikwad’s horizontally slung bat and earned not a run only cast what had gone before in stark relief.

Gaikwad and Ishan Kishan were rampant in their 60-ball stand of 97, India’s highest opening partnership of the series and their highest in the 18 T20Is they have played against South Africa. Only eight times in the 64 games in the format they have played at home have their first-wicket pair scored more runs. Thus their total of 179/5 would have disappointed them.

Gaikwad and Kishan took 10 or more runs off an over four times. After they were separated, in the 10th over, India reached double figures in an over only three more times — two of them in the throes of the slog at the end of the innings.

India were 48 without loss after the first five overs. They scored 49/1 in the next five, then 41/2 and another 41/2 to finish. Somehow, we saw 15 fewer runs in the last half of the innings compared to the first. And that despite first David Miller and Rassie van der Dussen, the owners of two of the safest pairs of hands in the game, putting down catches five balls apart in the 14th and 15th overs. Without Hardik Pandya’s late blast of 31 not out off 21, the home side might not have escaped the 140s.

South Africa reeled them back with canny bowling. Kagiso Rabada went for a dozen runs in his second over and 11 in his last, the penultimate of the innings. But the other two cost just four each. Wayne Parnell was hit for a dozen off the last, but only 20 in his other three. Dwaine Pretorius’ first two overs, both in the first half of the innings when Gaikwad and Kishan were going strong, yielded nine runs each. His other two went for 11. Nortjé bounced back from his 16-run mauling to limit the damage to seven in the only other over he bowled. South Africa’s spin suit wasn’t as strong. Tabraiz Shamsi and Keshav Maharaj had a combined economy rate of 10.00. The seamers banked a rate of 8.21.

But, not for the first time, the bowlers were let down. Or was it that India, having lost their way with the ball and crumbled when faced with the South Africans’ determination at the crease in the first two games, found a way to not only survive but prosper?

With Bhuvneshwar Kumar all but unhittable in his first two overs, when he had the ball zigging and zagging at will and went for only seven runs, and Yuzvendra Chahal doing much the same, albeit noticeably more slowly, in his haul of 3/20, the visitors had nowhere to go but to Rajkot for Friday’s match with bloodied noses. None of their partnerships reached 30. Neither did any of their batters. Maharaj’s strike rate — 137.50 for his eight-ball 11 — was their highest and the only one of 130.00 or more. The tone was set in the first 10 overs of their reply, when they slumped to 63/4 — 34 runs and three wickets worse off than their opponents were at the same stage of their innings. They were hemmed in by intelligent bowling and cleaned up by a flawless display of catching.

“With the bat, we just didn’t pitch up,” Temba Bavuma said in his television interview after his team had been bowled out for 131 to earn India victory by 48 runs, their biggest victory over South Africa in the format. “We didn’t get the partnerships and we didn’t have momentum.”

At the Kotla on Thursday, Van der Dussen and Miller were key to the successful chase of a record target of 212. In Cuttack on Sunday, Heinrich Klaasen stood tall with his career-best T20I score to reel in another win. Indeed, going into Tuesday’s match, India had lost five of their six completed T20Is against South Africa at home.

Even so, an India team without Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli and Jasprit Bumrah — who have been rested — and Ravindra Jadeja, Deepak Chahar and Suryakumar Yadav — who are injured — and under the guidance of first-time captain Rishabh Pant remain an India team. As South Africa have proved, they are beatable. But rarely easily. Therein lay the kernel of a series that remains rudely alive with two games to play.

First published by Cricbuzz.

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Indian silver gleams for South Africa

“The confidence that he will bring into the team, we look forward to that.” – Temba Bavuma on David Miller.

Telford Vice | Cape Town

EIGHT trophies gleamed behind Temba Bavuma during an online press conference on Tuesday that was conducted from the Wanderers, home of the Lions in South Africa’s domestic competitions. This was no gratuitous display of unearned accolades: Bavuma has been instrumental in winning those prizes.

He played in the Lions’ successful first-class campaigns in 2014/15, 2018/19 — when he captained them — and 2019/20. Bavuma was also part of the Lions’ teams who won the list A title in 2012/13 and 2015/16, and the T20 version in 2012/13, 2018/19 and 2020/21. He led them in the last two of the latter, and scored a century in the 2018/19 final.

Small wonder that, as Bavuma entered the room on Tuesday, he allowed himself a smug smile and made reference to all that sparkling silverware. He will hope to make a similar deposit in a different trophy cabinet in the coming weeks.

Bavuma will lead South Africa in the five T20Is they will play in India from next Thursday to June 19. The South Africans have won and drawn their only two bilateral series in the format in India — in October 2015 and September 2018 — and are no doubt eyeing another victory. With Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli and Jasprit Bumrah rested for the series, and Ravindra Jadeja, Deepak Chahar and Suryakumar Yadav out because of injuries, the home side would seem ripe for the beating. Bavuma might want to schedule a detour to CSA’s offices — less than three kilometres from the Wanderers — to drop off the trophy on his way home from India.

If only beating India in India was that simple. KL Rahul, who will captain the home side in Sharma’s absence, was the second-highest runscorer in this year’s IPL, which ended on Sunday with Gujarat Titans beating Rajasthan Royals by seven wickets in the final in Ahmedabad. Hardik Pandya, who turned in an exemplary performance as a captain and a player to engineer Gujarat’s triumph in their first bite at the biggest cherry in cricket, is also in India’s squad. As is Yuzvendra Chahal, the tournament’s top wicket-taker.

Bavuma knows his opponents will not go quietly, even without some of their most prominent players. “Even though India are resting their main players, it will still be a competitive series,” he said. “The guys in that squad can walk into the Indian team.”

South Africa are not giving their stars a break. David Miller, a vital cog in the Gujarat machine, will be in action. As will Quinton de Kock and Kagiso Rabada, who were third among the IPL’s leading run-scorers and wicket-takers.

Miller had his best IPL yet with 481 runs in 16 innings. He is the subject of an enduring subplot in South African cricket discourse that says he has either not lived up to his potential in an international shirt or not been given enough opportunities to shine for the national team.

Gujarat, this theory goes, got the best out of Miller by entrusting him with more responsibility. There is evidence for this argument in the fact that Miller batted at No. 5 in 13 of his innings for Gujarat. That’s in 86.67% of his trips to the crease for them. In his 83 T20I innings for South Africa, Miller has batted at No. 5 only 34 times: 40.96%. Or less than half as often as he filled that position for Gujarat.

Bavuma brings intelligence and sensitivity to the delicate business of captaincy, attributes that could be important in the cause of keeping Miller’s form flaming. “The confidence that he will bring into the team, we look forward to that,” Bavuma said of the lusty left-hander. “He has performed exceedingly well at the IPL and I’m sure that will do a world of good for his confidence and whatever feelings of insecurity that might be there. The conversations that I have had with David, he has never expressed those types of feelings to me.

“David is still an integral member within our team and we trust his performances will continue well into the future. In terms of him batting a bit longer, that has always been the conversation over the years when David has done well. He understands where he fits in within the team. If he feels he can add more value in a different position, a conversation can be had in that regard. There is no way we are going to stifle him or restrict David in any manner. That’s how we try to treat all the players. We try to set them up in positions where they can succeed and make strong plays for the team.”

That 17 players made more runs in the IPL than Aiden Markram, who scored 381 in a dozen innings for Sunrisers Hyderabad, might not seem worth noting. But it is in light of the fact that, in the same number of innings across the formats for South Africa before he went to the tournament, Markram made just 191 runs. Or just more than half his aggregate at the IPL, which may have given him his game back just in time for the T20I series.

But Dewald Brevis, who celebrated his 19th birthday during the IPL and scored 161 runs in seven innings for Mumbai Indians, is not in the squad. Bavuma wasn’t fussed by that: “In all fairness to him, he hasn’t played a first-class game. In terms of expectation but also to allow the boy to grow within his game, it would be fair to allow him to play a couple of first-class games where he can really get an understanding of his game. It will be a lot of pressure to throw him into the international set-up and expect him to make plays. He will be treated like any other exciting young prospect who comes onto the scene. He should be given time and space to hone his game within the system and ease into the international side of things.”

Several of the other players Bavuma will have at his disposal in India will be raring to go, having spent much of the IPL on the bench. Marco Jansen featured in eight games, Anrich Nortjé and Dwaine Pretorius in six each, Rassie van der Dussen in three, Tristan Stubbs in two, and Lungi Ngidi in none at all. Bavuma, Reeza Hendricks, Heinrich Klaasen, Keshav Maharaj, Wayne Parnell and Tabraiz Shamsi — the members of the squad who were not at the IPL — haven’t picked up a bat or ball in anger since April or May.

“From a mental point of view, in terms of wanting to play, I don’t think we will be falling short,” Bavuma said. “As a professional cricketer, you have to find a way to mentally, physically get yourself into the right space to be able to perform. Those guys who went to the IPL and didn’t get much opportunity to play will maybe want to prove something.”

Something that says they know what to do to put another trophy in the cabinet.

First published by Cricbuzz.

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Did India cook the net runrate books against England?

“They [England] bowled in good areas and the ball was stopping [in the pitch], hence it was difficult to bat towards the end.” – Virat Kohli tries to explain away India’s questionable tactics.

Times Select

TELFORD VICE in London

YOU might have marvelled at England’s death bowling in Sunday’s men’s World Cup game against India at Edgbaston.

Or you might have marvelled at India’s cunning in protecting their net runrate by not taking risks that might have cost them wickets.

India would have known the match was lost in the 46th over, when Hardik Pandya tried to hammer Liam Plunkett somewhere over the rainbow and sent a top edge down long-on’s throat.

Thus reduced to 267/5, India needed 71 off the remaining 31 balls.

They were scoring at 5.93 runs to the over and they needed 14.20 an over.

Even MS Dhoni, who has built a career on seizing the moment, who won the 2011 World Cup final with a mighty straight six, couldn’t solve that equation.

But Dhoni’s record and reputation only made what happened next all the more strange.

He didn’t try to win. Not that he tried to lose.

When Pandya got out Dhoni had faced 13 balls for his unbeaten 16.

Half his runs at that stage had come from a steepling drive off Chris Woakes that came to earth just inside the long-off fence and a meaty pull through midwicket off Plunkett.

They were strokes of intent; of a player who had a match to win, who knew how to win it, and who had won many more like it.

But, post-Pandya, Dhoni bunted for singles several deliveries he would have, in other circumstances, dismissed from his presence with panache.

He finished not out on 42 off 31 balls with four fours and a six.

Kedar Jadhav took a similar approach at the other end, hitting only one four and facing 13 deliveries for his 12 not out.

England won by 31 runs to revive their hopes of not having to rely on results of other games to reach the semi-finals.

The home side will secure their place if they beat New Zealand at the Riverside in Chester-le-Street on Wednesday.

India were the last unbeaten team in the tournament going into Sunday’s game, but they will not be overly concerned about suffering their first loss in seven matches.

Another log point from the four available in their remaining league fixtures, against Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, would clinch a semi spot — and Virat Kohli’s team should win both those matches.

Indeed, they are probably in the semis already thanks to a net runrate that is now up to 0.854, lower only than Australia’s and England’s.

Each team’s number of wins will be the first port of call for the beancounters to decide positions in the standings if sides are level on points.

If that doesn’t separate them it will come down to net runrate, followed by their head-to-head record.

That’s what Sunday’s shenanigans were all about.

Twice in their six completed games have India scored fewer than the 39 runs they added in the last five overs of their innings at Edgbaston.

But not once before Sunday did they not lose a wicket in the last five overs.

A team’s net runrate is arrived at by deducting their average number of runs scored per over from the average number of runs scored against them per over.

Wickets don’t come into the reckoning, but it makes sense to take as few risks as possible to avoid losing them, while accumulating what runs can be scored safely, if you are looking to keep the net runrate tidy.

So that was India’s priority once they knew England were on their way to victory.

Not so Mr Kohli?

“It’s up to discussions with the two guys who were in there,” India’s captain told reporters.

“I think MS was trying really hard to get the boundary but it wasn’t coming off.

“They [England] bowled in good areas and the ball was stopping [in the pitch], hence it was difficult to bat towards the end.”

When Pandya was dismissed India’s net runrate was 0.840 — 0.014 worse than where they are now thanks to Dhoni’s careful innings management.

On the same pitch, England scored 44 runs in their last five overs. But they also lost three wickets.

Their net run rate at the end of their innings was 1.119.

After’s India’s innings it had been reeled back to 1.

It’s the little things that count.

Not a ball bowled on Sunday, but plenty left in the match

Remarkably the pitch invader kept his composure well enough, even after goosing himself on a metal bannister, to evade a posse of security guards trying to head him off at the pass.

TMG Digital

TELFORD VICE at Newlands

THE only action on the third day of the first test between South Africa and India at Newlands on Sunday began unfolding at 3.30pm and was over within 10 minutes.

First one pitch invader clambered over the boundary fence, then another and another and still another.

The fourth of them, wearing a fake Hashim Amla tribute beard, proved the most successful.

He made it all the way across the ground, sidestepping orange-bibbed tacklers as he went, and successfully leapt the fence.

Remarkably he kept his composure well enough, even after goosing himself on a metal bannister, to evade another posse of security guards trying to head him off at the pass on the other side.

And all the while the scoreboard glowered down in vivid disgust, refusing to countenance the fact that anything noteworthy had happened since South Africa reached stumps on Saturday on 65/2 in their second innings for a lead of 142.

In the cause of reaching a result, losing an entire day’s play is never a good thing. But in this case there are special circumstances.

Helped by 13 wickets falling on Friday, the match advanced faster than it might have normally and — given better weather on Monday and Tuesday — winning and losing remain firmly part of the equation.

Even the absence from South Africa’s attack of Dale Steyn, who injured a heel on Saturday, shouldn’t have too big an adverse effect on their chances of surging for victory.

The home side went into the match with four fast bowlers, and the survivors aren’t too shabby: Vernon Philander, Kagiso Rabada and Morne Morkel.

Once the pitch invaders had come and gone on Sunday, or rather been taken away, groundsman Evan Flint took an umbrella out to the middle to have a chat with the umpires, Richard Kettleborough and Michael Gough.

“I told them I would need an hour — maybe an hour-and-a-half — to get the ground ready,” Flint said. “But they felt there was more rain on the way.”

Maybe the umpires should have listened to Flint. Just more than an hour after play was abandoned, and with almost 90 minutes of play theoretically possible and the stop-start drizzle having finally dried up, the sun broke through the thick cloud that had kept Table Mountain hidden from view since the morning.

A sprinkling more rain is forecast for daybreak on Monday, but then the south-easter is due to pick up and blow the wet stuff away.

Then the pitch will be invaded legitimately as India’s bowlers let fly once more at nightwatchman Kagiso Rabada, who is working overtime for his two not out, and Hashim Amla, on four.

Hardik Pandya, who hammered a fearless 93 in India’s first innings of 209, has claimed the wickets of Aiden Markram and Dean Elgar and will be on the prowl for more.

But Amla, denied on Sunday what would have been the best batting conditions of the match, will have something to say — and do — about that.

Steyn alarm sounds again

The nation will grip its beer unusually tightly when next Dale Steyn marks out a run-up. Will South Africa risk him against Australia in March?

Sunday Times

TELFORD VICE at Newlands

AN electronic alarm flooded the pressbox with annoyance when Dale Steyn was midway through his third over of the morning on Saturday.

Few took notice. We should have — Steyn was midway through the last over before tea when he pulled up short and hobbled off the field.

The nation dropped its beer and hoped against hope that it was seeing things. It wasn’t: Steyn could be out for up to six weeks with an injured heel. He was undone by landing badly in a foothole. Of all bloody things.

Steyn was playing his first test since November 2016, when a fractured shoulder might have ended his career.

Instead he showed spirit and defiance, considering he has more miles on his body clock than 34-year-olds who don’t bowl fast for a living, to earn a crack at a comeback.

This was that comeback, and the two wickets Steyn took put him three away from replacing Shaun Pollock as South Africa’s champion test bowler.

The nation will grip its beer unusually tightly when next Steyn marks out a run-up. Will South Africa risk him against Australia in March?

Much beer was consumed at Newlands in Saturday’s heat, and at stumps South Africa were 65/2 for a lead of 142.

The gap between the teams looked like yawning far wider when India shambled to 76/5 in reply to the home side’s first innings of 286.

South Africa had bowled like neurotic accountants in a first session of 25 overs, 10 of them maidens, that yielded only 48 runs. Steyn and Vernon Philander set the tone up front with four maidens.

But the wicket of Rohit Sharma was South Africa’s only reward for all that toil.

Then Cheteshwar Pujara sliced the first ball after lunch, a Philander outswinger, to second slip and the slide seemed on.

But the deceptively ordinary figure of Hardik Pandya strode to the wicket and took guard for his fourth test innings, and everything changed.

Pujara had spent more than two-and-a-half hours at the crease and faced 92 balls for his 26. Pandya batted for a minute less and faced three more deliveries — and scored 93.

Even on a placid pitch and against lesser opponents his would have been a gutsy effort. On this zesty pitch, a template for grounds everywhere, and against South Africa’s crack attack, Pandya played an innings of ballsy belligerence.

He should have been dismissed for 15 — when Dean Elgar in the gully made a mess of a catch off Steyn — and 69 — when Quinton de Kock botched a stumping off Keshav Maharaj.

Not only did Pandya survive, he prospered. And prominently in a stand of 99 with Bhuvneshwar Kumar that started after India had slipped to 92/7.

South Africa let fly at Pandya with everything they had. He took it, body blows and all, and returned it with interest until he tried to launch his main tormentor, Kagiso Rabada, over gully and edged to De Kock instead.

With that Pandya packed up his 14 fours and a six and left, and took with him the respect of all who saw him play.

Given everything that had gone before, South Africa’s second innings might have been a yawn.

And especially so with Elgar looking, early on, like a scratchy facsimile of the player he is.

But Aiden Markram accepted the challenge with energy and elegance. His first boundary, off Kumar, scooted through the covers and was immediately followed by another, this one off the edge and over gully.

Other Markram fours streaked away to mid-on, cover, twice, midwicket and extra cover.

Just when it seemed he was settling in for the afternoon, at least, he was gone for 34 — caught at backward point trying to pull. Elgar was caught behind 10 balls later.

Both times the bowler was, of course, Pandya.