Two juggenauts

Unless there are some day-night games scheduled on this England tour, these matches are going to leave a wierd cognitive imprint: the feeling that two matches are being talked about everytime I wake up in the mornings to read match reports on Cricinfo. For there is the game that I saw, and the one that Cricinfo covered. Last night, I merely witnessed a procession of Indian batsmen come in, respond to the two-faced wicket with a series of strokes that spoke of hope rather than planning, and then, make the walk back to the pavilion. When I woke this morning, it was to read about a game in which English batsmen continued that procession, in which Harbhajan took almost as many wickets in one innings as he seems to have taken in all the tests against England, in which Pathan continued his habit of taking wickets in the first over, and one in which the so-called "Indian juggernaut" couldn't be stopped.

The real juggernaut, I think, is far away in South Africa. Where, Australia, once more, are dealing with putative challenges to their test hegemony with a fly-swatting display that must put them in the right mood for the Ashes later this year. South Africa have threatened, and dared, but they can't quite get enough attack together to knock this Aussie team off its perch.