First Test: Team India conquer ‘final frontier’ in 3½ days

JOHANNESBURG: Remember the date: December 18, 2006. Fourteen years after their first tour of South Africa, and three failed trips later, India can now say there isn’t a country where they haven’t won a Test.

A little over two hours of resistance by the South African lower order, lead by a valiant Ashwell Prince, took the Wanderers Test to lunch on Monday. It wasn’t meant to go beyond. Destiny and the history books had a plan that Rahul Dravid’s boys were in tune with.

It wasn’t supposed to have worked out this way. Before the coin was tossed ahead of India’s tenth Test in this country, the question being asked was: how long will this match last (read: by what time will South Africa win)? But Dravid knew something others didn’t. “It is dangerous to write this team off,” he had said. On Monday, his team reaffirmed his belief in their resilience with a 123-run victory.

They celebrated it, too. The dressing room was a shower of beer, laughter and banter. 

The captain wasn’t spared, drenched with good old Castle Lager and elation, as the boys, in Dravid’s words, “went out of control”.

Several heroes emerged, some battle-hardened warriors (Sourav Ganguly, VVS Laxman, Zaheer Khan, Anil Kumble), others waiting to explode (S Sreesanth, VRV Singh).

Even as his ‘boys’ took centre stage, the captain quietly played mastermind to a triumph he will never term personal or attribute to an individual.

“It’s the team, always the team,” he said after pulling out a wicket and punching his fist in exultation. That conviction, perhaps, is what helped create history on Monday.