Hat-trick of Test wins: How Harmanpreet Kaur’s India dug deep to break the South African resistance in Chennai

03/07/2024

South Africa’s remarkable fightback continued well into the last session of the final day before India won the one-off Test by a 10-wicket margin on Monday. Like Day 3, where the visitors' dodged effort tested India’s patience, it was yet another hard-fought day. Harmanpreet Kaur & Co had to send down 154.4 overs in the second innings to dismiss South Africa for 373. Chasing 37 for their win, India made it in 9.4 overs.

After Sune Luus, South Africa’s captain Laura Wolvaardt reached her century early in the first session and looked strong to carry on. When Day 4 began in gloomy conditions, South Africa were in with a chance of at least drawing the game which looked improbable at the end of the first day when India scored more than 500 runs. Even when South Africa were bowled out for 266, it only looked a matter of time. But they showed they had the fight in him as they battled it out for four full sessions and stretched India to the limits. Of course, India had another commanding win to show in Tests, but that they were made to work hard for it in conditions that were not easy on them.

It was a day where India needed to be patient and keep showing the discipline to earn each wicket as this wasn’t a pitch where one wicket led to another. “See, obviously, the pitch was favouring the batters more than the bowlers. Yes, it was a difficult condition," player of the match Shen Rana said. But nowadays, we are getting pitches like this everywhere. So it's all about what consistency you have to work on. When you have to use variation on your ball. And at what time you have to use the stock ball more. I think these are all the learning from this game,” the off-spinner, who had a match haul 10 wickets, added.

The sheer determination to make a match out of it, though, wasn't lost on Wolvaardt.

“I think firstly to lose is a bit disappointing. But I think just the character that the group has shown over the last two days was absolutely amazing to see. I think to concede 500-and-something runs on day one, I don't think many people thought it would get all the way to the last session on day four. So I think just the absolute grit and determination that every single batter had going out there to see it through until the end was amazing, and I think it'll do a lot of good things for this group,” Wolvaardt said.

With the pitch not breaking up as expected, Wolvaardt who got used to the bounce, was happy playing the spinners off the backfoot. When Marizanne Kapp and Delmi Tucker fell in the space of an over to Deepti Sharma and Sneh Rana, all things pointed out to another collapse. And when Wolvaardt too departed for 122 (314b, 393m) before lunch, India were smelling victory and came with the intent to close out the game in the afternoon session.

But Nadine de Klerk had other ideas. Right through the second session, she would use her loose hand grip to defend the Indian spinners, who toiled hard. Instead of looking for runs, SA borrowed a lesson or two from what Hashim Amla, Faf du Plessis and AB de Villiers did in Delhi during their tour here in 2015. De Klerk cut out the run-scoring shots and defended with aplomb. Though India managed to take three wickets in that session, South Africa scored 34 runs in 29 overs.

Though wickets fell around her, De Klerk was immovable during her stay where she scored 61 runs off 185 deliveries. Every now and then, whenever India’s attack was beginning to seize control she would go for a big shot to release the pressure and force the hosts attack to do it all over again.

It meant, at times, India did look frustrated, with the energy levels dipping. Especially during the second session, one could hear wicketkeeper Richa Ghosh asking her teammates to “keep talking, keep talking.”

“It is what Test matches are all about. There will be such phases when there will be other partnerships. But you have to keep your mind active and body active. These chirpings inside helps sometimes just to wake you up. Because on the third day of fielding... 200-plus overs is not an easy job. So you need ways to stay fresh. And we tried to be positive at all times and hang in there and get the wickets. We kept saying we would eventually win this and not to give up. Having that sort of belief was absolutely necessary,” Rana added.

And shortly after the final session, India picked up the remaining two wickets with De Klerk, fittingly, being the final one to fall to mark the end of the Proteas resistance. The job would be eventually completed by Shubha Satheesh and Shafali Verma as India notched up their straight home Test win.

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