India vs South Africa 1st Test Day 2 Highlights – Jan 6, 2018
South Africa won the toss and chose to bat first.
India team/playing XI
Shikhar Dhawan, M Vijay, Cheteshwar Pujara, Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma, Wriddhiman Saha, Hardik Pandya, R Ashwin, Mohammed Shami, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Jasprit Bumrah.
South Africa team/playing XI
Dean Elgar, Aiden Markram, Hashim Amla, AB de Villiers, Faf du Plessis, Quinton de Kock, Vernon Philander, Keshav Maharaj, Dale Steyn, Morne Morkel, Kagiso Rabada.
AK Markram scored just five runs and gone, HM Amla had not survived for so long this time he scored just three runs and out when it was 4.5 135 kph, Amla edges off and South Africa are tottering! Good length outside off, it moves away late, but Amla rather inexplicably jabs at it. With that away seam movement, that shot is always fraught with risk, a thick outside edge is taken by the keeper. It’s a loose shot, and SA are 12 for 3 within the first 22 minutes of the first Test. 12/3. After three wickets down AB de Villiers and the captain himself comes to the crease and smashed Indian bowlers all around the park. AB de Villiers scored 65 runs off 84 deliveries and out when it was 32.6 goes through him! 140 kph, massive wicket. Bumrah’s maiden Test wicket is de Villiers. Full delivery outside off, de Villiers drives but that seam movement again, takes the inside edge and hits off stump. Throws his head back as he heard the stumps disturbed. 126/4. He smashed eleven 4s in his innings.
HighlightsPart 2Part 3
Match Timings: 10.30 start, Lunch 12.30-13.10, Tea 15.10-15.30, Close 17.30
India tour of South Africa 1st Test Highlights
Umpires – Michael Gough, Richard Kettleborough
TV Umpires – Paul Reiffel
Match Referee – Chris Broad
Reserve Umpire – Bongani Jele
Match number – Test no. 2292
F du Plessis scored 62 runs off 104 balls and out, he completed his innings with the help of twelve boundaries. When his wicket dismissed then it was 35.5 out this time, no doubt. Du Plessis has nicked off two balls later and SA are in big trouble! Good length outside off keeps a tad low too. Du Plessis cuts, but is a tad late on the shot. Toe-end to the keeper. Kohli sends off du Plessis with some ecstatic celebrations 142/5. Q de Kock † scored 43 runs, VD Philander 23, KA Maharaj contributed 35 runs, K Rabada 26 and DW Steyn 16. B Kumar took four wickets in 19 overs with 87 runs, R Ashwin took two wickets in 7.1 overs with 21 runs and rest of the Indian bowlers took one wicket each of them. India faced eleven overs and scored 28 runs with three wickets down, M Vijay 1, S Dhawan 16 and V Kohli (c) 5. CA Pujara and RG Sharma will start their innings from today.
Drama, thy name is Test cricket. At Newlands. On a pitch with a bit of spice. With a build-up that did not lack for shots across the bow. Faf du Plessis confessed he had a score to settle, and so he armed himself with four fast bowlers the envy of the world. Virat Kohli saw Dale Steyn, Kagiso Rabada, Morne Morkel and Vernon Philander during warm-ups. His only comment with regard to that was “we knew they were going a batsman short and we want to get at them with the new ball”. But really, how could anyone avoid the temptation of unleashing that attack, in any condition let alone a surface with both pace and lateral movement. Given 11 overs to turn the game, Philander dismissed M Vijay, Steyn claimed Dhawan to move into the top-10 wicket-takers in Test history and Morkel lured Kohli into a familiar trap behind the wicket. India bowled South Africa out for 286 but then they limped to stumps at 28 for 3.
Cape Town dealt almost exclusively in hair-raising action. Bhuvneshwar Kumar began proceedings by spiriting three wickets in his first three overs. To ensure there wasn’t one-way traffic, AB de Villiers produced a half-century that was downright delectable. He had total control of the game and the opposition at his mercy when the debutant Jasprit Bumrah – who played his last first-class game almost a year ago – knocked back the off stump. India’s hold-one-end-up bowler Hardik Pandya got rid of du Plessis for 62 mere moments after a remarkably tight lbw call went against the visitors. Kohli probably had that running in his head – and the South African captain’s pre-series comments about revenge – when he indulged in a send-off and was soon cautioned by the umpires. Worried that things had calmed too far down, Quinton de Kock played like he was the action hero who always gets shot at but never gets hit.
Now, it is more than fair for a home team to play to its strengths but that didn’t mean batting was a treacherous exercise. The outfield was lightning. The ball came on even better than expected. Fields were up. And fun was had. The run-rate through the first two sessions was 4.3. Dean Elgar might not be too happy with how his day went though. Having finished 2017 as South Africa’s highest Test scorer, his first innings in the new year lasted only three deliveries. It wasn’t entirely his fault though. India had probably done their homework and realised that of his 44 dismissals to pace, 30 of them have been caught behind or in the cordon. So Bhuvneshwar forced him to deal with a back-of-a-length ball pitching on off stump and seaming away. He had to play. Then he had to go.
Aiden Markram was lbw not playing a shot. Okay, that’s not quite true. He was trying desperately to bring his bat in line with a good length delivery pitching outside off and jagging back in but he just wasn’t quick enough. The young opener basically strung himself up with his habit of shuffling across and playing around his front pad. The third wicket of this phenomenal spell was probably the most important of them all. But it was the least sexy. Hashim Amla poked well away from his body and Wriddhiman Saha picked up his second catch of the first half hour, much to the cacophonous delight of the slip fielders beside him. Oddly, Ajinkya Rahane was not among that number with India choosing to go in with Rohit Sharma, a man in better recent form, and Hardik Pandya.
With the new ball and the outside and inside edges hogging the limelight, the middle of the bat was off sulking somewhere. De Villiers found it and made sure it was front and center for the entire time he was at the crease. He sent his first delivery through midwicket for a crisp boundary. He struck India’s best bowler of the day for four fours in an over. He played late. He met the ball close to his body. He used soft hands. And he punished anything even remotely short. In essence, de Villiers’ innings was an exhibition of how to bat on a difficult pitch. Playing only his third day of Test cricket over the last two years, he made 65 off 84 balls. Du Plessis was, as ever, scoring runs by simply making sure he was at the wicket. He waited for the wide ones to hit through cover and point. He feasted on the straight ones, that strong bottom hand coupling very nicely with a fast outfield. But the cut shot to get to a half-century in his comeback Test – he missed Boxing Day with a viral infection – was basically a dare. Try stopping that.
India might have done even better if Mohammed Shami had found his rhythm sooner but he probably did not enjoy bowling into the wind; his run-up noticeably affected. It took 10 overs and three spells for his first wicket of the tour. It was one his team was hunting for though. Philander, in his pre-match comments, had indicated that he did not believe India were better travelers now. And while he did play some of the best cover drives in the match, helping string a vital 60-run stand for the sixth wicket at more than run-a-ball with de Kock, he left the field with his defences and his stumps shattered. Bhuvneshwar had the opportunity to take the fifth wicket just before tea was taken, but India’s old problem of having a porous slip cordon put paid to those plans when Dhawan dropped Keshav Maharaj on 0. The batsman had made 35 in enterprising fashion before he was dismissed, run-out by a direct hit from R Ashwin at mid-on. Later, the offspinner picked up his first wicket in South Africa, Rabada caught behind. The innings ended in the 74th over when Morkel was lbw to the same bowler for 2. The hosts’ last five wickets added 144 runs – that’s two more than the first five.
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