KOLKATA: Paying Rs 60 to watch a whole day of Test cricket feels a bit illegal. In this hyperinflated world of elite sport where you have to pay top money to either get in or watch it on an app behind the paywall, Rs 60 feels like one of those steal deals.
It certainly felt like one of those days for the over 36000 fans who had made their way to the Eden Gardens to welcome back Test cricket to these parts for the first time in six years.
When they went back home on Friday evening, the paying public would have a lot of memories to look back on. Kuldeep Yadav's beguiling class of his craft. The short but sweet opening partnership between Ryan Rickelton and Aiden Markram. Dhruv Jurel's catch off Yadav to remove Temba Bavuma.
Above all, they will cherish yet another piece of Jasprit Bumrah theatre. Every ball a separate event, every over a limited edition web series and every spell a full length feature film.
He has made all of this look normal. An extraordinary cricketer doing extraordinary things while having the air of somebody out on his morning walk. Which isn't out of character because the first few steps — 14 to be exact — at the top of his mark is of a man ambling towards completing his daily step quota just after dinner. Slow, unhurried and completely content with life.
Shortly after 9.50 AM, Bumrah knew he had a narrow window to make the first spell count. There was already some variable bounce and there was movement. So, his first order of business was to figure out a way to 'make an impact'. "You always try to assess the wicket as soon as possible," he told reporters in the post-day press conference. "It's important to understand what kind of wicket it is, what works and so on.
"When I bowled the first over, everything happened. The ball swung, it stayed low, it kicked. So I told myself, 'it is a little difficult to understand what is the right length.' So you keep bowling and figuring things out. That was my reading initially."
He had troubleshooted on the fly to eliminate the boundary balls but the problem was the hosts were leaking from the other end. Bumrah had already bowled five overs in his opening spell for nine runs but Axar Patel (0/15 in two) and Mohammed Siraj (0/25 in three) had, between them, conceded seven boundaries and a six.
But Bumrah felt it and wanted to keep going. So Shubman Gill was happy to give him the ball from the Club House End, the End from where there was already some uneven bounce. Three balls later, there was lift-off.
It was a magic ball. A length ball, it pitched around off stump before some very late swing away from Rickelton. The southpaw was playing for the straight delivery and the delivery hit the outside half of off stump.
Moments later, a different kind of magic trick followed. And this wicket was reminiscent of the Cape Town surface from last year. A back of a length ball reared off and Aiden Markram, already committed, saw the ball hit the glove before Rishabh Pant accepted the offering.
This is exactly what he meant when he said "when the ball is nice and hard, the seam is pronounced," after the day's play.
Off the others, the Proteas had burgled 53 without loss in six but Bumrah had picked two in seven overs. A potentially great start to the Test was ruined by the pacer.
The problem with dealing with India's multi-pronged strike force at home is once you see the back of Bumrah, Kuldeep Yadav generally has the ball. The greatest wicket-taking spinner in the history of the game (in terms of SR = minimum 50 wickets) gradually entered the contest. He saw a few turn back into the right-hander, his stock ball. He got one delivery to turn just a touch after pitching on leg and Temba Bavuma's inside edge was pouched by Jurel.
The wristspinner was again in the wickets column post lunch but the session was underlined by another Bumrah spell. This is where he had to make the adjustment as he honed in on the stumps. With the seam less pronounced, he decided to shift his line a touch. There was also a hint of reverse — something that was advertised coming into the game — so out came the yorker. "When the deviation becomes lesser after the ball goes old and soft, the accuracy comes into play," he said.
True to form, he got Tony de Zorzi leg before. In fact, the hosts' bowling unit moved their lengths up to the stumps to try and hit the stumps or the pads after the ball started to tail. Siraj got a leg before as well as a bowled in the same over after lunch but his new-ball partner wasn't going to be denied a fifer.
Yashasvi Jaiswal lost his stumps in the final session but KL Rahul and Washington Sundar fought through to stumps to ensure they remained in command.