Shelin Krishnan
Supersport Park, Centurion
18 December 2010
A beautiful day for cricket. SA batsmen pummeled India.
Unlike the chaos that usually greets spectators back home in India, people that turn-up to watch sport in South Africa end-up having a good time. The facilities are good, the atmosphere festive and the general mood happy.
Election rally anyone?
You see all sorts of people turning-up to watch the games here – some u can find in an artificial pool chilling with beverage, some cooking food in what is locally called the brai and some fooling around. Here, someone looks to be campaigning for TDP!
Kepler Wessels and Mike Haysman get ready to cover the 3rd day's play
Kepler Wessels and Mike Haysman get ready with their bites at the start of the 3rd day’s play. As it turned out there was great entertainment with 444 runs being scored in the day with Kallis getting to his first double-hundred and de Villiers to the fastest hundred by a South African.
Polly rushing to the com box
Shaun Pollock is a legend. Though he’s from Durban, Polly is massively popular all over South Africa. He secretly would have loved to have had a bowl in the Indian first innings. Still very fit, you can see him rushing upstairs to the commentary box just as the play is about to commence.
Kallis and de Villiers: Heroes of the day
Kallis and de Villiers stride out post-lunch to pile the misery on Indians. de Villiers played the innings of the day, but Kallis is striding out in search of that elusive double-hundred. It was almost festival-like when he got there eventually. 38th time lucky for Jacques!!
Tendulkar strides out post-lunch on day 3
No double-hundred issues for Sachin as such. There was a double for him against the same opposition in a one-dayer earlier this year (there by becoming the first to do so in the history of one-day cricket). Here, he got to his 50th Test hundred. He may not have had a great time of it against Proteas through his career, but nothing to complain about this year. Let’s hope he has many more peaks to scale.
Though it wasn’t particularly a great Test for an Indian fan, it certainly was for an Indian fan in a cricket stadium where your comfort was plenty. A different experience in all, but disappointment aplenty with India’s performance.
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