Familiar faults expose India in the middle

When India toured Sri Lanka in August, they were still figuring out who their best No. 3 was. Rohit Sharma began the Test series in that position, but soon swapped places with Ajinkya Rahane. By the end of the tour, even though Rahane had made an important hundred in that position, it seemed clear he was better suited to his original No. 5 slot.

It wasn't that there was anything particularly wrong with his technique. It was just that he seemed to play too many forcing shots early in his innings, particularly drives away from his body. He had shown glimpses of this tendency even at No. 5, but the risk-reward equation was different in that position, and he had more scope to trust his hand-eye coordination.

When he walked in to bat on Wednesday, India were 94 for 3, having lost Cheteshwar Pujara just after lunch on a first-day pitch giving the spinners plenty of assistance.

There was a restlessness to Rahane's batting right from the start. He kept trying to drive Simon Harmer against the turn, and twice dragged the ball to mid-off while aiming for the gap at cover. If the balls had dropped a couple of inches shorter, they might have spun through the gate and bowled him. It was an approach fraught with risk, given the amount of turn all of South Africa's spinners were getting. Amidst all this, he also stepped out and lofted Harmer sweetly over the long-on boundary.

Against Kagiso Rabada, Rahane played away from his body twice in two balls. First he middled a drive, without moving his feet, to the fielder at cover, and next ball he was beaten, wafting at one slightly shorter in length.

When Morne Morkel replaced Rabada, he instantly found reverse-swing with a 35-over-old ball. In the second over of his spell, he swung one away from Rahane, pitching the ball on a good length outside off stump. Rahane hung his bat out at it, seeming to try to steer it down to third man. The ball kissed the edge and fell just short of Hashim Amla, diving to his right from first slip.

The next ball was the inswinger. It took out Rahane's off stump after swerving past the inside edge of his flashing, angled bat. Rahane had managed to pack a chancy century's worth of thrills and spills into a 25-ball innings.

Meanwhile, against the batsman at the other end, Morkel was in the middle of a tactical battle that had begun before lunch. Virat Kohli was the batsman, and Morkel had been testing his patience with a line wide of off stump.

It is a common tactic against Kohli, who often pushes at balls outside his off stump with hard hands. The ploy has rewarded bowlers right since India's tour of England last year. In Sri Lanka, Kohli fell twice in this manner during the third Test at the SSC.

Despite that, it seemed a counter-intuitive tactic to adopt on a VCA Stadium pitch with markedly low bounce for the fast bowlers. Edges seemed unlikely to carry too far, and attacking the stumps seemed a more effective strategy. Still, Morkel stuck to his guns. Before lunch, he beat Kohli once, and got him to drive away from his body on a couple of occasions.

The first three balls Morkel bowled to Kohli after lunch were all pitched on a fullish length wide of off stump. Kohli left all three alone. Two balls later, he bowled another in that channel, and Kohli chased at it, slicing the ball streakily to the third man boundary.

Morkel had dismissed Rahane by the time Kohli next faced him. First came a wide outswinger, which he ignored. Then came one a touch closer to his stumps. Kohli pressed forward, pushed a defensive bat at it, and nicked to the keeper.

Watching the dismissal from the commentators' box, Sunil Gavaskar said Kohli's old weakness had consumed him again, that he had gone hard at the ball and was "playing again around the sixth or the seventh stump, deliveries that he does not need to play".

On a pitch where spinners were expected to do the most damage, India had lost two key middle-order wickets against pace, to loose or tentative shots to balls in the channel outside off stump. Morkel was bowling an excellent spell, no doubt, but the batsmen also contributed to their own downfall. Both Kohli and Rahane were out in a manner not unfamiliar to followers of this India team.

When Kohli fell, India were 116 for 5. It was anyone's game at that point. Eventually, a combination of luck - Wriddhiman Saha kept getting beaten against Morkel and Rabada but somehow didn't edge either of them - skill, and wayward bowling, particularly from Imran Tahir, helped India stretch their total to 215. It seemed a score that was par or a little better than par given how much the pitch was assisting the spinners. By stumps, India had further strengthened their position by taking out two South Africa wickets in nine overs, leaving day one of the Nagpur Test looking more or less like day one of the Mohali Test.

India won that game by a handy margin, and they seem to have given themselves a great chance of winning this one as well. If that happens, the manner of Kohli and Rahane's dismissals will come to occupy a not particularly significant place in the larger narrative of this Test match. But similar mistakes in the future could have dissimilar consequences.