Herschelle Gibbs is our classiest batsman

Shaun Pollock

Controversy aside, the highlight of the Summer Spice series for me has been the revelation of Herschelle Gibbs as our classiest batsman of 2001.

The quality of Tendulkar, Ganguly, Sehwag and Laxman tested the impetus of our bowling attack at times and although we can claim a convincing win over India, our opponents have left us feeling realistic, determined and confident rather than conceited ahead of our tour to Australia.

It must be said that our victories can in part be attributed to our exploitation of local conditions, prepared to suit our South African pace attack and offering little support to the good variation of spin bowling carried by India.

In our tactical discussions we had identified that the Indians were unaccustomed to playing on bouncy wickets so we obviously used this in our favour. Just as it’s difficult for our fast bowlers to adjust to the slow wickets in India, so the Indian spinners found it difficult to extract turn out of our wickets, despite their undoubted class.Regardless of the fierce competitiveness displayed by players on the field, there’s always an underlying mutual respect for one another and most players relish an opportunity to enjoy a bit of social interaction in the change-room after play.

Often facilitated by change-room attendants, shirts, caps and other memorabilia are swopped when the series is over. I swopped shirts with Sachin and I’m sure this item will be a great collector's piece as he continues his quest to become the world's leading run scorer in Test cricket.Whilst South Africa is a pleasure to tour, I would expect the Indians will be pleased to be returning to the familiarities of home.

Speaking to Sourav,he lamented about the number of games that had been interrupted by rain.Being stuck in a hotel room makes the tour seem to drag on and on. As a cricketer, rain delays are probably one of the most frustrating aspects of the game and the Indians had their fair share of that on this tour.In between off the field politics and temperamental weather, the defining moments of the tour were the early Indian wickets in the final of the one-day series and the turnaround of the first Test match on day two.

To briefly discuss the “unofficial Test”, my first surprise was seeing Rahul Dravid making his way to the centre for the toss and later I was somewhat encouraged to hear that a number of changes had been made to the line-up.

We encountered a slow and seaming wicket and our patience paid off in restricting India to 232. On a batsmen friendly wicket, each of our batsmen was able to get amongst the runs.

Herschelle’s solid opening partnerships with Gary Kirsten has stabilised our teams approach to batting and given us confidence ahead of our upcoming tour. I enjoyed my innings except for the fact that I broke my favourite bat whilst hitting a four. With 330 on the board, it was always going to be an uphill battle for the Indian team to fight back.I’ll be watching the England-India Test series with interest.

I just hope that the off-field activity doesn’t overshadow the games as it has done in this series. The Indians have surprisingly little time to prepare for their first Test once they return home.England are probably mindful of the lack of experience in the bowling department with (Darren) Gough and (Andrew) Caddick out of the line-up.

India are presumably the “favourites”, especially taking into account their recent form in the last series at home against Australia.

Despite England’s recent show of good form in the sub-continent, I think Harbhajan Singh and Anil Kumble will get much more assistance from the pitches in India than they did in South Africa, promising to be a handful for the English batsmen.

The injury to Srinath is a big blow for India as he has shown his class throughout the tour. The find of the tour for India was Sehwag who will be keen to continue his good form when he plays again. England, on the other hand, have nothing to lose especially with some new faces around.

- G E Features

Earlier columns:
- The Indians now have everything to play for
- We won't rest on our laurels
- I would have preferred to celebrate with a win
- Our ploy proved successful