Dec. 23: Three hours before Mahendra Singh Dhoni had his first look at the Kingsmead pitch on Thursday, his South African counterpart was circling it like a hawk, his arm around the pitch curator Wilson Ngobese.
After spending what felt like an eternity staring at it from all angles, he pinched few blades of grass and threw it in the air to gauge the wind direction. Next he looked up at the clear-blue sky, that had been a morbid shade of grey till last evening.
The ritual isn’t that uncommon if you’re a captain, neither is the buttering up of the curator who, three days before a Test match, is your best friend. But given that South Africa have a single victory to show in the last seven years of Tests played here, and on a track considered to be South Africa’s very own Perth, Graeme Smith’s move assumes significance ahead of the Boxing Day Test against India beginning on Sunday.
For Dhoni’s men, the pitch has been tailor-made for Dale Steyn and Morne Morkel with lots of grass on it, but the last time the South Africans customised it this way — against Australia in 2008 — it backfired with Mitchell Johnson enjoying the conditions a lot more than Steyn and Ntini did.
The very next Test against England last year when a spin-friendly track was prepared, Graeme Swann ran through the hosts’ batting line-up twice with a match haul of nine wickets.
The hosts lost by 175 runs to Australia, and by innings and 98 runs to England. “Our last two matches here have not been our best performances and all round we haven’t played that well here but it’s up to us to put that right,” Smith said.
“We have had a good chat about how we want to play in Durban and the things we can use to our advantage.” Despite putting a brave front, Smith knows that Ngobese is preparing a track based on the assumption that rain will affect Day One of the Test just like the metrological department has predicted.
It also means that India’s batsmen could face problems in the first innings if they happen to bat first just like at Centurion, and that South Africa bat the way they did like last time round. There is already talk of South Africa keeping their options open, of playing either Johan Botha to support Paul Harris or playing batsman and part-time bowler J.P. Duminy for more elongated periods if the weather changed in the next two days.
Just to add more confusion into the mix, Imran Tahir, a Pakistan-born leg-spinner who is married to a South African, is the leading wicket-taker in the domestic Series this season with 30 scalps on the same track. “There’s a possibility, yes (of playing two spinners). Durban has been favouring spinners more, so I won’t rule it out,” Smith added.
The curator said he’d been informed that he might have to shave the grass off the pitch, but not how much. “If there’s less grass, and it gets dry, it can actually help spinners more with bounce and turn,” Ngobese told this newspaper on Thursday. Whether that’s going to be the case will be only be known two days from now. But it’s clear that it’s not just the Indians that will pad up for Kingsmead on Sunday with a hint of wariness.