Steyn's off-field planning comes to fruition

Steyn - career-best haul.

"This pitch is not so flat any more," came a comment on a website not a million miles away from here as Dale Steyn began to rip through India on the third day. The statistics may suggest as much, given that twice as many wickets fell on Monday as on the previous two days combined, but the comment still did Steyn a disservice.

If anything, the pitch was even slower today and thus more difficult for the fast men to bowl on, but it's amazing what a difference an extra 10km/h can do for you. That, and the ability to swing the ball both ways.

Steyn's talent has never been in doubt. He became the quickest South African bowler to 100 Test wickets on the back of his natural outswinger alone, but since then it has been his hard work which has impressed the most as he continued to add weapons to his armoury.

Eight wickets in a day and a career-best 7 for 51 were just reward for putting in the hard yards. Steyn admits that his scalping of Sachin Tendulkar after an epic battle and the wicket of Murali Vijay - who was bowled as he shouldered arms to an inswinger - were the most satisfying.

"That one, and Vijay just before him," he said when asked whether Tendulkar had been an extra special victim. "I worked him [Vijay] out quite nicely with two balls that went away before bringing one back in, which he left. That kind of stuff just doesn't happen out in the middle. We've really planned it."

The addition of the inswinger over the past month has made Steyn the complete package, and his ability to swing alternate deliveries in different directions left the Indian batsmen guessing, but often guessing wrong.

"You work on these things in the nets, and then to see guys shoulder arms as the ball cannons into the stumps..." he said, trailing off. "I know I got [Ian] Bell in Johannesburg and that's where it started for me. I'd bowled it a couple of times before, but from Bell onwards is when it's really started happening for me. It's a skill that you have to have in your armoury when you come to these kind of conditions, where you don't get assistance off the deck and you've really got to rely on some of your skill."

By the time Steyn had finished showcasing his skills, India were 66 for two following on, still 259 runs behind South Africa's mammoth 558 for six declared. A ball change just before tea certainly helped the Proteas along, but a pep talk from coach Corrie van Zyl also had an impact.

South African cricket appeared to be in turmoil just ten days ago when Mickey Arthur and Cricket South Africa parted ways, but there's no denying that Van Zyl has added fresh ideas to a squad who had heard the same voice for five straight years.

"He basically just sat us down and said that from tea onwards is where the game really defines the player," Steyn said. "You've been out in the field for two hours and now you've got to go and do another two hours, so it's really just a motivational talk.

"It was the same kind of talk that we have all the time, but when you come to India you know that it is difficult and the days tend to get long because it's warm, there's not a lot of movement off the deck and there's nothing really happening. So little speeches like that can lift the players."

Steyn's spell of 5 for 3 from 22 deliveries shortly after tea allowed South Africa to enforce the follow on. Even with a lead of 325 it seemed a bold move in conditions where batting last is never favourable, but it was the sort of decision that sent shockwaves through an already stunned Indian team.

Aside from Virender Sehwag's masterful century, the only thing to go wrong for South Africa was the loss of wicketkeeper Mark Boucher to back spasms. AB de Villiers was forced to take over the gloves after tea, but scans revealed that Boucher, who was complaining about the hardness of his bed last week, shouldn't be absent for too long.

"He's been for both a CT scan and a MRI scan and I'm happy to announce that they both gave him a clean bill of health," confirmed Proteas spokesman Michael Owen-Smith. "It is a lower back strain and he will receive ongoing treatment from the physiotherapist.

"I don't want to put a timeframe on it, but we're confident he'll be ready for the Kolkata Test at the worst."

Tristan Holme in Nagpur