By Avishek Roy, IANS
Ahmedabad : The media has not had enough of Jacques Kallis’ girlfriend Shamone Jardim and Dale Steyn’s mate Jeanne Kitzmann. The duo has been the darling of photographers and media persons alike as there aren’t many colourful and cheering faces in the crowd to shoot, thanks to India’s disappointing performance.
Kietnzmann, an actress, jumped in delight when Steyn took his first wicket and the camera was rightly focussed at her at that moment. She did a jig and then sat back to watch the match again.
The media has already been at the receiving end after a newspaper here identified Jardim wrongly as the batsmen’s “ex-girlfriend”. The paper picked up a wrong photo, that of former Miss South Africa Cindy Nell, who accompanied the all-rounder to India on a previous tour.
The newspaper had to apologise to an incensed Jardim, who reportedly called up the office and gave a mouthful.
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Guessing game goes on
Forty, 50 or 60 runs. No, they can’t go beyond their first innings score. Saturday morning saw everybody at Sardar Patel (Gujarat) Stadium play the guessing game. It was not a cricketing guess by any standard.
How long, how many balls and what score will India end up with in their second innings? And, above all, how many wickets will Dale Steyn pick up? The bowler had wreaked havoc on the first morning and he would have been all set to have a go at the Indian batsmen after Friday evening’s rains made the track a perfect one for fast bowling.
For the first few overs in the morning, it looked as if India were playing South Africa in their backyard. The ball darted around dangerously as Steyn and company used the short pitch stuff to good effect to put India on the back foot.
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Best crowd attendance Saturday
With Sourav Ganguly playing a role in India’s turnaround the third day, people did not want to lose their chance of watching their heroes in action. So what if India has been at the receiving end of South African fury until now.
The third day saw the largest attendance so far in the second Test and the cheers for the Indian team grew louder as South African pacers charged in. Some 8,000 brave hearts turned up at the Sardar Patel (Gujarat) Stadium in Motera, near here, Saturday.
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Crispy snacks, but power troubles irk scribes
The Gujarat Cricket Association has been a good host. Delicious lunch and crispy snacks are being served and every small detail of the media contingent here has been taken care of.
But when it rained heavily Friday, there was a bit of commotion in the media box. Glass windows cracked and the power went-off as media persons rushed at other places to file their reports.
Some of the advertising hoardings at the stadium also came off, and organisers had to fix quite a few things before the third day’s action began.