Kolkata: After drinks on the second day, Temba Bavuma replaced Corbin Bosch from the Club House End from where 17 of the 26 wickets in this India-South Africa Test at Eden Gardens have fallen. The match was drifting towards India with KL Rahul and Washington Sundar chipping away at South Africa’s modest first innings score of 159 by taking India to 75/1 at Saturday’s first mini break. And it was on the man who had returned from the wilderness, 31 months after his last Test, against Pakistan, to change that.
“You needed to take wickets but you couldn’t afford to leak runs so you had to make sure you were putting balls in the right areas,” Harmer said. He did. With the second ball he removed Sundar, inducing an edge with a classical off-spinner. Shubman Gill then retired hurt and that meant the over that began with India in control ended with them having lost two batters.
Bowling unchanged for the next 14.2 overs against a line-up where four of the remaining seven batters were left-handers, Harmer finished with 4/30 before South Africa were entangled in a spin web, reduced to 93/7 at stumps. On a pitch where Marco Jansen had got a back-of-a-length delivery to spear early in the morning, Harmer got one to spin so sharply from middle stump that wicket-keeper Kyle Verreynne conceded four byes.
At the other end, Keshav Maharaj, having been hit for four fours and two sixes, had managed to surprise Rishabh Pant with bounce but the ball flew too quickly for Aiden Markram. In a contest of wafer-thin margins, that, along with Wiaan Mulder’s reverse-sweep on Friday, would have been another what-if moment for South Africa. Pant’s free stroking contributed 27 in an innings lead of 30.
But not long after, KL Rahul was scalped by Maharaj and suddenly India were feeling the heat. From 171/5, India were 189 all out. It revived memories of the 2012 December Test here when Graeme Swann had removed Virender Sehwag and then Sachin Tendulkar to trigger a second-innings collapse against England.
Unlike India, South Africa couldn’t always maintain pressure from both ends. For instance, Bosch’s third-spell figures read 6-0-31-1. That increased Harmer’s difficulty quotient, one that the off-spinner coped with remarkably.
Second wind
At 36, Harmer is a Test player reborn. Since debut in 2015, he played only 12 Tests before this, 10 of them by 2023. But for Maharaj’s injury ahead of the first Test away to Pakistan, Harmer, despite 1,000 first-class wickets, may have been kept away. Four wickets in the second innings in Lahore and Harmer, having honed his skills at Essex, hasn’t looked back.
Not being able to deal with expectations following a tour of India in 2015 was one reason why Harmer took the Kolpak agreement, where South Africans can play county cricket but are not eligible to represent their country.
“Ravi Ashwin was bowling like a jet and the expectation was that I needed to do the same and I put myself under even more pressure,” he said. “I realised I wasn’t good enough and I came to Mumbai in 2016 to work with (coach) Umesh Patwal. I think I discovered a lot about spin bowling. That was probably the point in my career that gave me ammunition to get better.”
Harmer said he is now more confident in being able to compete for a berth in the team. Crucial to that has been developing a variation that doesn’t turn. “Sometimes you get a turning wicket and you are just trying to turn it more. Sometimes the skill lies in bowling one that doesn’t turn.” Also, bowling on flat tracks in England, he has now learnt to get the ball to spin quickly.
Bowling around the wicket, Harmer got the ball spin and sit up. Having spun one away to Ravindra Jadeja, he got the next ball to skid in from a similar line and get the leg before. With one that didn’t turn, Harmer got Dhruv Jurel to mis-hit a drive on the front foot and took an excellent, low catch.
“It was pretty evident that you needed to be fuller rather than short here. Testing the front-foot defence allows the ball to spin past the bat and brings in both edges,” he said. Harmer ended India’s innings by getting Axar Patel caught while trying to cut.
That was an “incredible” fightback, he said. “We could be sitting here tomorrow night with South Africa having managed to get 150 and India out for 80. You can laugh about it now but he who cries first, laughs last, they say.”
