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January 04, 2007 (Link to Scorecard)

It was a mixed bag for India and South Africa on the third day of the series decider at Newlands, the end of proceedings has got the match evenly balanced. India had to toil hard to achieve a 41-run lead as SA stretched their first innings total to 373. A flurry of wickets from the tourists was compensated with a couple of important partnerships from the home side. Now the match will be decided on the second innings with India having a tiny advantage of the lead, but they are pushed on the backfoot due to the injury problems shown by their two pacers - Munaf Patel and Sreesanth, both of them having ankle pain.

The pitch looked slightly better at the start of the day than what it was yesterday, and the two settled batsmen - Graeme Smith and Hashim Amla continued with their efforts of taking their team to safety. Graeme Smith was aggressive with his powerful drives in all directions. He failed to reach his 12th test match century by just six runs when his early and uppish drive was beautifully taken by Sehwag at short mid on. Anil Kumble was rewarded for being relentless, his leg break had gripped onto the surface to induce that mistake from Smith and Dravid's field placement had paid off. It was the end of a superb 159 run-partnership for the second wicket. At the same score of 173, SA lost Hashim Amla as well, falling to a bad shot outside the offstump to a reverse swinging outswinger from Sreesanth. Amla added just the 13 to his overnight score of 50. All the three Indian medium pacers had used reverse swing very effectively to keep the pressure on the batting team. South Africa had managed to go with just those two wickets down at lunch with the score moving onto 206 for 3.

The afternoon session was clearly going South Africa's way with Kallis playing some brilliant drives that punished anything full and Prince was there to support him. Most of the two hours of play had gone in favour of the home side except for the last part in which three wickets fell to the spin trio of India. Rahul Dravid did not take the second new ball even though it was over due, a decision which proved right in a big way as Kallis after reaching his fifty, went for an ambitious sweep shot off Tendulkar's leg break to be caught by Munaf Patel at deep mid wicket. It was the fall of a big fish, one that recharged the Indian team totally. Anil Kumble gave the knock out punch by getting Ashwell Prince who dragged his backfoot drive onto the stumps. Prince troubled the Indians for 112 balls scoring a stubborn 26. Just at the stroke of Tea, Virender Sehwag got a bonus wicket, that of Herschelle Gibbs, given caught at short leg off a sharp off break. The decision from Darrell Harper was a questionable one as the replays showed that there wasn't any bat involved in that. At Tea, SA was shakily placed at 283 for 6.

The last recognized pair of batsmen, Boucher and Pollock came to the aid of their side by putting on a 69-run stand. The first innings deficit was coming down rapidly as the two played some positive cricket by punishing anything that was loose. With options running out, Dravid finally decided to go for the second new ball which was hit around for a few boundaries, but a lazy drive from Pollock without any footwork had caused his downfall. Pollock made 31 before he edged Zaheer Khan to Sourav Ganguly in the slips. But for this partnership between Boucher and Pollock, SA would have been bowled out giving India a much bigger lead.  Debutant Paul Harris added 22 runs with Boucher for the 8th wicket before the latter poked at a gentle outswinger from Munaf Patel behind the stumps. Boucher fell after making exactly 50 runs, he had struggled against the leg breaks of Tendulkar in his initial stages at the crease. Anil Kumble removed the wickets of No. 10 Dale Steyn and No. 11 Makhaya Ntini with two consecutive skidders with a relatively new ball to wrap up the innings. Kumble will be on a hat-trick when he comes out to bowl in the second innings. The South Africans were bowled out with two overs remaining in the day's play which meant that it was stumps on Day 3. Anil Kumble worked extremely hard for his 4 wickets giving away 117 runs in 42.3 overs.

The Indian bowling looks to be lacking the venom to take the wickets. The third seamer Munaf Patel has been a huge disappointment, he was labouring in his run up and his deliveries lacked any sting. Patel was bowling at just around 125kmph speeds with the second new ball, a bowling speed that Sourav Ganguly would have hurled at. Things are not looking promising as far as the bowling is concerned for the Indians. But they will pin their hopes on Anil Kumble and the other two spinners to run through the Proteas on a dry wicket. Before that the Indian batsmen will have to overcome the South African pace attack and also the vicious turn of Paul Harris.

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