South African bowlers dominated Day 1 of the opening Test match against India at SuperSport Park on Tuesday, December 26. Before KL Rahul‘s spectacular unbeaten knock, Kagiso Rabada‘s five-wicket haul stumbled the travelling facet in Centurion.
India misplaced the toss and have been compelled to bat on Centurion’s rain-hit and pace-friendly floor. Rabada shortly tailored to the taking part in circumstances with glorious bowling from the beginning. He dismissed Rohit Sharma with a pitched-up supply and compelled him to play a pull shot which discovered the advantageous leg.Â
Youngsters Shubman Gill and Yashasvi Jaiswal additionally did not impress and misplaced wickets to debutant Nandre Burger. India confirmed some resistance by Virat Kohli and Shreyas Iyer however each batters fell to Rabada’s intelligent variations with the ball.
Apart from KL Rahul’s sensational 70* off 100 balls, Indian batters had no reply against cheesy taking part in circumstances. After the match, the previous captain and commentator Sunil Gavaskar highlighted the pitch’s nature and the way Indian batters confronted comparable circumstances in Johannesburg through the 2018 tour.Â
India have been bowled out on beneath 250 scores in each innings however recorded a 63-run win after Ajinkya Rahane‘s spectacular 48-run knock in the second innings. Both Rahane and Cheteshwar Pujara are missing this tour after inconsistent performances all through 2023 and are unlikely to make a return to worldwide cricket.
However, after seeing India’s battle in tough taking part in circumstances, Gavaskar talked about Rahane and his spectacular document in abroad circumstances.Â
“People have been talking about the pitch in the Johannesburg Test five years back and I was there,” Gavaskar stated. “Yeah, it wasn’t the easiest of pitches to bat on the odd ball was climbing up. Ajinkya Rahane, who had not been picked for the first two Test matches, was picked for that game and he showed what the Indian team had missed because earlier on in the first couple of Test matches India did not lose by big margins. So maybe somebody with Rahane’s experience overseas… because Rahane overseas has been such a fine, fine player and maybe if he had been there today the story could have been completely different.”
South Africa Playing XI: Dean Elgar, Aiden Markram, Tony de Zorzi, Temba Bavuma (c), Keegan Petersen, David Bedingham, Kyle Verreynne (wk), Marco Jansen, Gerald Coetzee, Kagiso Rabada, Nandre Burger
India Playing XI: Rohit Sharma (c), Yashasvi Jaiswal, Shubman Gill, Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, KL Rahul (wk), Ravichandran Ashwin, Shardul Thakur, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Siraj, Prasidh Krishna
