A jubilant Graeme Smith spoke to the media after a magnificent series win
Dileep Premachandran in Cape town06-Jan-2007Listen to Graeme Smith and Shaun Pollock at the press conference
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Weighed down by his own batting woes and shocked by the manner of the
123-run defeat, Graeme Smith had cut quite a disconsolate figure after the
first Test at the Wanderers. Less than three weeks later though, the mood
was very different, after a five-wicket win that he called one of the
highlights of his career. Victory in Durban in the Boxing Day Test gave
South Africa a route back into the series, and at Newlands, on a surface
more suited to the Indians, Smith’s side came back magnificently to script
a famous final-day triumph.”I think it’s a massive win in all of our careers, to come back from 1-0
down in a three-Test series,” he said after the game. “I remember after
the Wanderers [defeat] being asked how difficult it would be.
Realistically we knew how difficult it would be. I think we just played
superb cricket. We’ve never given up, and shown character at key moments.
To win in Durban like we did was obviously fantastic. But this win here at
Newlands, considering the conditions and considering that they were 254
for 3 at the end of day one, was incredible.”They had to do it the hard way, with unseasonal rain keeping the players
off the pitch for more than three hours after Smith and Shaun Pollock had
given the team a rollicking start in the morning. “Obviously a little bit
of panic starts to set in,” said Smith, when asked about the mood in the
dressing room as the rain poured down. “You don’t know when it’s going to
stop. The Black southeaster is always rare, and you don’t know if it’s
going to stop or not. Polly and I had huge momentum going into that rain
delay. We were definitely on top of the Indian team at that stage. They
were panicking. Virender Sehwag was coming on. It was disappointing to
come off. But having got back on and finished off the game, we’re pretty
relaxed now [laughs].”The decision to move Pollock up to No.4 proved an inspired one, though
Smith accepted that it had been laced with risk on a pitch where Anil
Kumble was expected to wreak havoc. “I phoned Polly last night and told
him that I was thinking about moving him up to bat with me in the
morning,” said Smith. “Between the new ball, which was difficult, and the
reverse-swinging stage, there was a time where you could score pretty
freely. I think both teams did. This morning, it was important for us to
take the initiative up front. Shaun’s the guy with all the experience and
the ability, and he’s a good thinker on the game. It was the right choice
and luckily it paid off. It was one of those decisions you live or die
by.”After Smith and Pollock departed, it was left to Jacques Kallis and
Ashwell Prince to seal the win, though Kallis exited just two runs before
the stands erupted in joy. “There were one or two discussions that took
place after I got out,” said Smith, when asked if he had been tempted to
promote an attacking player like Mark Boucher or Herschelle Gibbs. “I
think Ashwell’s becoming a serious pressure player. He’s a man stepping up
on a lot of big occasions for us.”He proved it last year against Australia, and he’s proving it again now.
His game’s really compact, and at that stage another partnership would
have got us home. You’ve got to rely on your guys to do the job. We’d
taken the one risk, and the guys did a superb job of taking us home.”The win was all the more satisfying considering that it came on a pitch
that Wasim Jaffer described as an “Indian” one after his opening-day
century. “Those that say we can’t produce spinners’ wickets to develop
slow bowlers should have seen this one,” said Smith with a grin. “It was
disappointing, but it was fantastic to win on it. It means we’ve learnt
from our trips to the subcontinent. Our ability to play spin, which
everyone questions all the time, has definitely improved.”There were two factors in this game. One was the reverse swing, with the
dry surface and some very skilful bowlers. And obviously, the spinners
played a huge part. Our ability to put India under pressure in their
second innings was the key. They didn’t score runs and we picked up four
wickets after lunch. That gave us the initiative. Still, chasing 211 on a
pitch like that is a huge achievement.”Smith wasn’t overly critical of India’s tactics on the final day, though
he did admit that one particular decision perplexed him. “We were saying
at the end of the game: what if Tendulkar had bowled 20 overs [he bowled
3.1]? He was getting a huge amount of turn and has a great googly that
guys struggle to pick.”Kumble never posed the threat that he was expected to, and Smith said that
his batsmen deserved a lot of credit for that. “I think the key for me was
to get off strike as much as I could, and to keep mixing up whether I went
forward or back,” he said, talking of his approach on the final morning.
“Any bowler that feels a bit of pressure doesn’t settle into a line and
length. And I also had to get rid of silly point [laughs].”
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In the final analysis though, the win was set up by some superb bowling on
the fourth day, with India’s batsmen retreating into a defensive shell
from which they never emerged. “We knew that we really had to squeeze
India after lunch,” said Smith. “I heard comments that we were a bit
negative with [Paul] Harris bowling into the rough. At that stage, we just
wanted to make sure that India went nowhere. We knew that if we could get
the ball to reverse, we had the guys to make the ball work for us. Paul
did a superb job in partnership with Jacques [Kallis] initially and then
Shaun [Pollock].”Shaun bowled best with the reverse-swinging ball in the first innings and
he did it again. You don’t get to 400 Test wickets if you don’t know what
you’re doing. He’s the guy that’s stepped up the game for us beautifully
throughout the series. I don’t know how many more compliments we can give
the guy but he’s certainly a superb asset for us [smiles].Pollock was the man of the series, for his 187 runs and 13 wickets at a
Scrooge-like average of 16. After a couple of seasons of relative
underachievement, he had an outstanding series against India, and was full
of praise for the manner in which the team had bounced back. “All the guys
have shown a lot of character, from the guys who walked in for their
debuts, Morne Morkel and Harris, to the guys who were perceived to be out
of form [Smith] that bounced back and got big runs,” he said. “We’ve shown
what a fighting team we can be.”We’re not proud of where we’re rated in the world rankings at the moment.
We’re working on trying to get up, and that was a motivating factor for
us.”The last word has to go to Smith, who led his team magnificently when the
chips were dwindling and there were calls from a few quarters for his head
on a plate. “Senior players are always the ones who are watched,” he said
with no trace of rancour in his voice. “Even when we lost Jacques [Kallis,
to a back injury] in Durban, a number of guys stepped up at the time. And
in this game, our senior guys all contributed superbly.”And it’s not only what you see on the field. It’s what happens in the
dressing room, what they say to the young guys, the experience they bring.
That’s invaluable. At one point, Makhaya [Ntini] was asking me if he could
go and bat next [laughs]. He backed himself as a senior player to go and
finish the game. As a captain, to have guys in your team who want to take
responsibility is a huge asset.”How Rahul Dravid must long for the same.
