The Test-match leg of India's tour of South Africa consisted of three beguiling

Test matches which were as challenging to read and they were enthralling to watch.
None of the three pitches could be considered batting friendly. Though India lost
2-1, the series was probably as far away from a 3-0 wipeout as it was from a 2-1
Indian win.

A standard story is told about India's overseas tours in the public prints,
involving some comment about the capacity (or lack thereof) of India's batsmen to
face up to fearsome foreign fast bowling, and wonderment about how India's fast
bowlers occasionally challenge the home batting. India's batsmen are expected to
slay impossible demons regularly. India's bowlers are expected to impersonate
demons only occasionally. Given that most of the writers who write about India's
Test team are men, this storyline is a psychoanalyst's dream. Or perhaps, it is a
psychoanalyst's cliche. The transcript of the Indian captain's press conference
after the second Test match consisted entirely of questions about team selection
and the performance of the batting. Much of the discourse was about how India's
bowlers kept dragging the team back into Test matches, making up ground the batsmen
were seemingly repeatedly losing.

The problem underlying all these storylines is an absence of information.

Evaluating batsmen and bowlers on the basis of their careers averages is reasonable
because over the course of a career, averages are a good proxy for quality of
batting and bowling. Over a solitary Test match, though, this makes very little
sense. But then, over the course of a single Test, no other systematic measurement
has hitherto been available. In the past decade, ESPNcricinfo has maintained a
record of all cricket matches it covers on a ball-by-ball basis. Apart from the
commentary, they record the usual outcomes - how many runs, how many extras,
whether or not a wicket fell, what was the line and length of the delivery. They
also record a judgement: was the batsman in control of the delivery?

Control is an elegant binary measurement of batting and bowling, as opposed to runs

and wickets, which represent the outcome of batting and bowling. It records whether
or not the ball went where the batsman intended it to.

In the case of the South Africa-India series, the control measurement provides a
less batting-centric picture. It shows that while India's batting coped admirably
with the home bowling, it was the superior overall quality of the home bowling that
proved to be the difference between the two sides.

The ball-by-ball record can be summarised in various ways, from the most specific
individual bowler v batsman match-ups to innings summaries. Two measures are
developed from the data. The first measure "In Control Per Not In Control" records
the number of balls the batsman was in control for every ball that the batsman was
not in control. This is designed to demonstrate the amount of control the batsman
had over proceedings. Higher values show that the batsman was in control more,
while lower ones show that the bowler created more uncertainty. The second measure
"% Runs Scored Not In Control" gives the percentage of the total runs that came
from deliveries where the batsman was not in control. This is designed to be a
stand-in for "luck". Almost every single dismissal (run-outs excluded) occurs when
the batsman in not in control. Finally, scoring rates (runs per six balls faced)
for in-control and not-in-control delivery sets are presented.

Summarised by team innings, the control numbers reveal that the series consisted of
two types of Tests. The first and third Tests were both unusually bowler-friendly.
The second Test was far more conventional, with the bowlers gaining ascendancy as
the match went on. It could be argued that the toss in the second Test was the most
crucial one of the series, because judging by the control figures, the wicket in
Centurion became progressively worse for batting as the match progressed.