Smith amazed over India’s unexpected fall down
Graeme Smith, the skipper for South Africa’s Test cricket team has said that there was no demon in the wicket, but still seeing http://www.senore.com/Cricket/India-c750 surrendering at mere 136 was a great surprise.
At the end of the second day’s play, looking quite happy with the performance of his team, Smith said, “I was very surprised. I didn’t feel the wicket did that much, I mean nine wickets down in 37 overs. I know we bowled pretty well with control and executed
the plans with a calm head. The wicket on Friday morning was pretty similar to Thursday.”
He said that amid being slow and pungy, the wicket had turned out to be two-paced. The way Jacques Kallis and Hashim Amla had carried forward the tone set by the skipper and Alviro Peterson, it had really made the day for the hosts.
Taking on with the bat, the openers Smith and Petersen respectively put 62 and 77 runs on the board, while from thereon, it was experienced Kallis and emphatic Amla who did not leave any room for the Indian side to get back into the match. By the end of
the day, Kallis was at 102 while Amla had put 116 runs on the board. They concluded the day with a total of 366 runs on the board, maintaining a lead of altogether 230 runs over the visitors. The match has still to go for three full days.
Looking quite hopeful for doing still well, the captain said, “There is still a lot of cricket left in the match. We have AB (De villiers) and Ashwell (Prince) next and they are pretty free-flowing scorers. So, hopefully we will set a good base and if we
can exert pressure on them early in the second innings, it would be good for us.”
Smith also reiterated the fact that to keep the status of being world’s number one, it was essential for the Indian side to win more matches while being away from the home grounds.
He concluded his remarks by saying that for a team who claims to be number one, it was important to win as many matches abroad as they win at home. Giving the examples of team http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Australia-c746, he said that they had set the ball rolling when they used to dominate
the game. “We have a couple of teams touching the number one ranking but let’s see it is a long series” he added further.
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