Like a tug-of-war team unable to stop the slide, India have hurtled towards defeat in South Africa. Most teams that come here do but that should be little consolation. There has only been one team in this series and that hasn’t been India. It was expected but not quite as devastatingly so.

Good tug-of-war teams have good anchors; solid, immovable fellows and this Indian team needed them more it did the flashy front-liners. On good surfaces, of average bounce the ordinary player is king but it is when the tide starts to turn, when the conditions, the pitches and the food are different that the anchors become invaluable. It is like in football where you cry out for the defender when the going gets tough but generally ignore him till the next real battle comes along.

Rahul Dravid should have played that role for India and it looked like he would till he broke his finger. It was a deeper blow than that, more like the spine. Rarely has fifty overs seemed such a forbidding distance away, especially since Sachin Tendulkar grew inconsistent. The whispers about the great man grow but when the time came to buckle down, to play towards the otherwise innocuous target of fifty overs, he put his hand up.

It was painful and admirable. The emperor was bereft of his robes and was walking the streets like a common man; playing and missing, getting hit on the pads, carrying a bat without a middle when once it only had that; unable to play shots with his eyes open that he otherwise would have with his eyes shut.

... contd.