Hot Shot Halep on a mission to win her first Major Proteas let good position slip
Two rash run outs see home side surrender the initiative to visitors India
mphahlele@sundaytimes.co.za
● South Africa made what could have been a good and dominant first day of the second test look perilous with a sluggish third session in which they lost three wickets in quick succession to give India momentum.
The Proteas disappointedly moved from a commanding 246/3 to 251/6 after they lost Hashim Amla, Quinton de Kock and Vernon Philander in 13 balls to reach stumps on 269/6 after 90 overs.
As things stand Virat Kohli will be the happier of the captains after they fought brilliantly after tea to leave South Africa with unbeaten captain Faf du Plessis (24) and Keshav Maharaj (10) and the tail of Kagiso Rabada, Lungisani Ngidi and Morne Morkel to bat.
On Friday Proteas Du Plessis admitted he was not sure what to expect because of the unusual thick layer of brown grass on the pitch and his fears were realised with the ball gripping a little in the first session.
Though the pitch was on the slower side with little pace and bounce to assist the quicks, Du Plessis will be disappointed that Quinton de Kock and Vernon Philander returned to the pavilion without scoring.
The other thing that must have left Du Plessis disappointed is that Amla and Philander were run out late in the afternoon much to the dismay of the lively crowd that packed this Pretoria venue.
Because of the slowness of the pitch it was no surprise that Kohli used spinner Ravichandran Ashwin significantly more than his four seamers
Though the pitch was a bit slow, Aiden Markram and Amla reached half centuries and were the two South Africans to put significant scores on the board with respective scores of 94 and 82 respectively.
Dean Elgar and De Villiers contributed 31 and 20 respectively. De Kock and Philander did not contribute anything.
Earlier Markram was unlucky to be dismissed four runs shy of a century after he slightly edged the ball and was caught behind by Parthiv Patel off the bowling of Ashwin as India began to make inroads in the second session.
Reacting in his dismissal, the 23-yearold Markram admitted that he was bitterly disappointed.
“I am bitterly disappointed to get out that close to a hundred and it is now the second time in a short space of time but I am going to keep on saying it is part of the game. I will keep trying to be positive if I can and next time I get into a similar situation I will take lessons and hopefully I will be able to get through to three figures,” he said afterwards.
Because of the slowness of the pitch, Kohli used spinner Ravichandran Ashwin more than his four seamers and he repaid the faith put in him with good figures of 3/90 in his 31 overs.
Paceman Ishant Sharma got the scalp of AB de Villiers with the other two wickets coming as a result of run outs.
Looking back at his three wickets, Ashwin agreed that there was a little assistance for spin in the morning.
“I haven’t played a test match here in Centurion to be surprised at the slowness, there was a bit of spin in the morning because it was damp. I was told that it is generally damp on the first session of a test match here in Centurion. I feel those three wickets in the last session are very valued going into day two because if they did not lose them they will have more batsmen to make it very hard for us,” Picture: Reuters