Dravid had said that it is difficult to commit whether Siraj will get fit in the next few days as hamstring injuries don’t heal that easily. In this backdrop, India have two options for the Newlands Test starting January 11. One is 33-year-old Ishant, who hasn’t been in the best of forms but has experience of more than 100 Tests and is a workhorse. The other is 34-year old Umesh, who has layed 51 Tests and in the recent past has been a better performer than Ishant, who seemed to have also lost out on a bit of pace with age catching up.
However, both Dravid and
Virat Kohli, who everyone expects would make a comeback from his back injury in the final game, may prefer the Delhi speedster for multiple reasons. One of the biggest reasons could be his height (6’3), which might help in creating those awkward lengths for the Proteas batters, something that the home team pacers like Marco Jansen have enjoyed. “It just felt like the ball seemed to misbehave a little bit more for them, and that could be [because of the] fact of the height. On up-and-down wickets sometimes just having that extra height might tend to make a little bit of a difference,” Dravid had said.
Even former chairman of selectors MSK Prasad agreed that Ishant should be the choice. “We missed a tall fast bowler in Johannesburg and the only one we have is Ishant. On these kinds of tracks, he is my choice ahead of Umesh. Had it been an Indian track which is rugged and feels like a dustbowl, Umesh would be my ‘go to’ man.” The ideal length on South African tracks is somewhere in between back of the length (short) and good length (6 metre). It’s indeed a tricky one, says former India keeper Deep Dasgupta, who feels that despite Ishant going off the boil in the past few games, he still should be preferred at Newlands. “I won’t be able to say whether Kohli has the same faith in Ishant’s abilities which he had till 2019. But even then in this game, Ishant, if played, could come in handy compared to Umesh.
“Firstly, with that height, he would hit tougher lengths and secondly because of his ability to keep the batters quiet for long periods of time which unfortunately didn’t happen on a bowler friendly track at the Wanderers,” Dasgupta said. “Ishant can bowl a good eight to 10 over spell and if we see the trend, a first innings score of 275 is the new 350 in Test matches in these conditions. Also Ishant bowls that fourth stump line where the ball can straighten or cut back enough to make the batters play. But yes, team management will check out their practice form too,” Dasgupta said.
In case of Umesh, he bowls a fuller length, gets that lethal outswing going his way at 140 clicks but the question is, if India can afford to play a bowler, who has a propensity to bowl too many boundary balls. This habit of Umesh could prove to be very costly in low-scoring games where periods of lull created by defensive bowlers are like gold dust.
HIGH TIDE, LOW TIDE
Just like at the erstwhile WACA ground in Perth where the afternoon sessions used to help the bowlers with lateral movement due to the ‘Freemantle Doctor’ — afternoon sea breeze that blew across the ground — some of the sessions at Cape Town are guided by the effect of high and low tides, felt Dasgupta, who had played here in 2002. “Newlands Stadium is beside the sea and there are times when there’s a high tide that assists more movement in the air and off the pitch. High tide results in drop in temperature and hence there is some amount of nip in the air. Exactly opposite happens in case of a low tide when it becomes a bit warmer and there might not be much for the bowlers. “In both cases, Ishant is a better bet,” Dasgupta said.
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