South Africa are sinking in mental battle, but they can right the ship against India

South Africa find themselves trailing India 1-0 at the half-way stage of the four-Test series because they are losing the mental battle and not because they have been outplayed in the middle. They have allowed talk of spinning pitches to get in their heads and compounded it by talking up India’s spinners, especially R Ashwin. Exhibit one in the case for a collective brain freeze is South Africa captain Hashim Amla’s dismissal in the second innings in Mohali for a duck. The Mighty Hash averaged 102.87 from 10 innings in India before the start of this series. [caption id=“attachment_2512072” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Exhibit one in the case for a collective brain freeze is South Africa captain Hashim Amla’s dismissal in the second innings in Mohali for a duck. AP[/caption] He made a breezy 43 in the first innings but with South Africa chasing 218 for victory, Amla inexplicably chose to leave a delivery from Ravindra Jadeja that pitched on off stump and went on to hit middle stump. With arms raised above his shoulders, Amla stood frozen in time for a moment before the enormity of his mistake hit home. Despite his impressive facial hair, the confusion on his face was evident. The only way that ball was going to miss the stumps was if it slammed on the breaks and turned hard left, like a race car taking a tight corner. AB de Villiers aside, the South Africa batsmen have batted as if they expected the pitches in Mohali and Bangalore to play more mind tricks than a Jedi Knight. As a result, they fell to the ball that did not turn more often than the one that did. “Not all the balls were turning, and they mostly got out to the ones that didn’t turn,” Jadeja said after the first Test. “We just kept it simple.” South Africa has been so inept that a couple of workers putting up banners at the Nagpur stadium told the Indian Express that “we hope that they can bat decently and we can have a four-day Test match.” Clearly, they believe lasting the full five days is beyond the Proteas. India have prepared another dusty turner in Nagpur and if the visitors are to get back in this series and make it a contest, the first thing they need to do is start playing the ball and stop playing the bowler or the surface. South Africa have talked Ashwin up so much you’d think India’s leading spinner was a combination of Muttiah Muralitharan, Shane Warne and Loki, the Norse God of mischief. While it can be a good thing to acknowledge the challenges one faces, in this case it seems to have backfired and kept the batsmen from thinking clearly. They have been expecting magic and in doing so, are seeing illusions everywhere. The key to being successful in these conditions is patience and good footwork. Amla, AB de Villiers and Faf du Plessis all have the talent and the temperament to bat long hours. But Du Plessis in particular has demonstrated the the fear that has hamstrung most of their batsmen. In three short innings, he has largely been rooted to the crease and reaching for the ball, rather than going right forward to smother any turn or right back to give himself more time to adjust his stroke “This is what has really been surprising, he [Du Plessis] hasn’t shown any coherent plan, a clarity of thought”, Sriram Veera writes in the Indian Express. What South Africa ought to do is learn from the way Murali Vijay and Cheteshwer Pujara batted in the first Test. The two India batsmen did not try to dominate the bowling. They didn’t try to hit the spinners off their lines. Instead, they were patient, took singles and twos and punished the occasional bad ball. They were able to do this because they accepted the conditions and their footwork was decisive – both forward and back. They did not stand motionless, filled with dread at the thought of batting on a demon pitch. They had a plan and were clear-headed enough to execute it. Watch Amla’s dismissal again. His feet never move. He just raises his arms as if wants nothing to do with the ball, as if the ball was a ticking time bomb. But it’s not. It’s just a cricket ball. South Africa’s batsmen need to treat it as such.