Am I missing something?

Barry Richards incessant ramblings when India was bowling and this critique of India's batting makes me wonder exactly which team holds the upper hand at the moment in the 3rd Test between India and South Africa at Cape Town.

First Barry., Or rather his whine about India not showing greater initiative while bowling. And his wishful projections of South Africa taking the lead by the end of tomorrow and having enough wickets and time to build up a substantial lead on day 4.

Here's my take -

India needs to tighten its ground fielding, but so far, no catches have been spilt and the seamers have done a fair enough job with the ball.Granted, India could have utilized the double spin option sooner and maybe Kumble could have changed ends, but besides that, I do not see what else India could have done, given the circumstances and given the conditions.

The wicket is not going to get any better with each passing day. With the sun beating down on the ground over the next 3 days, the wicket is only going to dust up more and the cracks will get more prominent.
The ball is now 41 overs old and getting softer so run making will get more difficult, especially with the spinners operating.
The spinners will get more involved in the game on days 3 ,4 and 5, and given the turn and bounce Kumble extracted when he hit the right lengths, batsmanship will not be easy.
The ball has also started to go Irish, and in Munaf Patel and Zaheer Khan, India has the bowlers who can exploit this.
India will probably exercise the Sachin Tendulkar option sometime tomorrow. Given Sachin's penchant to extract enormous turn ( albeit with little control), I would not be too surprised if that creates a flutter in the South African dressing room.

Given all of the above, to expect South Africa to consistently maintain a runrate of 3.25-3.5 per over over a period of 90 overs and losing only about 5 wickets is more in the realms of fantasy.

Now about the initiative bit. For all the carping about how India was not forcing the issue, the South Africans have been equally guilty of letting things drift. So its even-stevens on that count.

Now about India's batting and Dileep's gripe :- India scored 414 runs!! I mean,at the end of the Durban test, if someone would have said that India would score 400 runs batting first against the South Africans, that person would have been laughed at!!!

Let us also not forget that every single batsman in the top 7 got into double figures and 5 of the 7 got scores of 40 or more. For a batting lineup that capitulated so easily at Durban, I think this was a huge effort. Sure India could have done with more runs,any team would. but now that India has the runs on the board, it is up to the Indians to defend the total and for the South Africans to better it.

As things stand today, South Africa need another 71 runs to avoid the follow on with 9 wickets in hand. After avoiding the follow on, they need to score quickly enough to overhaul the Indian total and have enough time to build a substantial lead.

254 runs were scored on the first day for the loss of 3 wickets, 304 runs were scored on the second for the loss of 8 wickets.

I do not expect this trend to continue. If anything, the scoring rates will decline and the wickets lost/day will increase.

Day 3 will give us a clearer picture of where this test match is heading. Insofar, it is India's Test to lose. And if they do, they would have to have played extremely poorly over 3 days . And I do not see that happening!!!