“Who do you think is winning that one at the moment?” asked Dale Steyn, smiling.
He'd just been questioned on his battle with Sachin Tendulkar. “Oh, me! That's refreshing,” he said when he heard the answer. “But, no, Sachin's a very good player. There's no point wasting energy bowling at him. You focus on the other guys. But if you bowl a good ball to him or a No. 11 it remains a good ball.” Steyn said it was fulfilling to pick up five in Jacques Kallis' absence, and despite not having much luck. “We've had some bad luck, but if we stay humble in the way we play our cricket, hopefully the cricket gods will smile at us in the second innings,” he said.
“Maybe we'll get a few wickets off bad balls. But there's no point crying about bad luck.”
Asked about being the No.1 bowler in the world, Steyn said, “It doesn't really mean anything. I mean Zaheer Khan hit me for six! I don't think about all that. It's just about me doing my thing.”
Harbhajan Singh, who shaped the day's play as well with a vital 40 and two wickets, said India had the edge. “It was a great day for Test cricket,” he said. “Sachin got another brilliant hundred and Steyn was brilliant, swinging the ball from leg stump to off stump. We can't really ask for more from a day's cricket. We have the edge, but still need to do a lot of work to win this game.”
The wicket's uneven bounce, Harbhajan said, could play a part. “Some balls are keeping low and some are bouncing more than you expect. If you hit the right areas you can pick up important wickets. Kallis and Amla will be important wickets to get.” Asked about Sreesanth's trouble with the crowd, Harbhajan said, “Obviously Sree is getting more famous. I got booed in Australia and enjoyed it. Let Sree enjoy it here.”
