IND vs SA, 1st Test: India strike back after batting collapse
Centurion: Indian pacers lived up to their reputation by running through the South African top half, reducing the hosts to 109 for 5 at tea after Lungi Ngidi’s six-wicket haul limited the visitors to 327 on day three of the first Test. After a good batting day at the onset, the second day’s heavy showers […]
Centurion: Indian pacers lived up to their reputation by running through the South African top half, reducing the hosts to 109 for 5 at tea after Lungi Ngidi’s six-wicket haul limited the visitors to 327 on day three of the first Test.
After a good batting day at the onset, the second day’s heavy showers spiced up the pitch to such an extent that as many as 12 wickets were lost in the first two sessions. If India lost seven of them for an addition of only 55 runs in the morning due to Ngidi’s 6 for 71 and Kagiso Rabada’s complementary 3 for 72, Mohammed Shami (2/16), Jasprit Bumrah (1/12), Mohammed Siraj (1/29) and Shardul Thakur (1/27) all got into the act on a spicy deck with a lot of underlying moisture.
Credit to India that despite losing Bumrah for a better part of second session due to sprained ankle, they didn’t let the intensity down even after Temba Bavuma (31 batting) and Quinton de Kock (34 batting) had added 72 runs for the fifth wicket.
De Kock’s loose shot of a long hop from Thakur that saw him drag one back onto his stumps literally put the Proteas in the dumps. This was after Bumrah bowled a beautiful length with a tiniest movement that had Dean Elgar edging one to Rishabh Pant. Coming in as one change, Shami bowled an in-cutter that breached Keegan Peterson’s defence and then bowled a late leg-cutter that beat Aiden Markram’s outside edge.
Rassie van Der Dussen found Siraj’s pace too hot to handle and the outside edge was comfortably snapped at gully by Ajinkya Rahane. The morning belonged to Ngidi and Rabada as the Supersport Park track stayed true to its reputation of quickening up as time progressed.
The bounce was more and the length that Rabada and Nigidi bowled consistently was a touch fuller compared to first day. It was Rabada, who drew the first blood on the day with a well-directed short ball aimed at Rahul’s rib-cage. The batter simply couldn’t manage the pull-shot and the tickle landed in de Kock’s gloves.
In case of Rahane, Ngidi hadn’t provided enough length for the drive and the ball reared up from length to take his edge and into keeper’s gloves. Ravichandran Ashwin’s batting in SENA countries has gone downhill and the leading edge that lobbed up to Keshav Maharaj was a result of not being able to negotiate extra bounce generated by Ngidi.
Rishabh Pant (8)’s dismissal was a carbon copy of Cheteshwar Pujara’s where an angular delivery climbed up and it was an easy bat-pad catch for forward short leg. Bumrah (14) did hit a few boundaries to take the score past 325 which was at least 75 runs short of what India had envisaged at the start.
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