Centurion — India ended Day three of the first Test against South Africa the stronger side, and with a lead of 146 runs.
IOL Sport’s Stuart Hess, who is at SuperSport Park in Centurion, takes a look at the Plays of the Day, where the visitors outplayed the Proteas, and are well on top after three days.
BALL: A relentless set up and then perfect ball, angling into the right handed Markram, and moving away after pitching, to smack into the top of off-stump. Shami was magnificent.
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CATCH: Mulder, who’s quickly becoming a mainstay in the corden, flew down to his right and hung to a good low catch to dismiss, the last Indian batter Bumrah and give Jansen his first Test wicket
SPELL 1: The improvement from the first morning continued as Ngidi produced a wonderful six over burst on Tuesday morning to lay waste to India’s middle order. That spell read: 7-1-26-3.
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SPELL 2: Shami had it on a string after lunch. This was high quality seam bowling as he got the ball shaping away from the right hander and brought the odd one back. He picked Markram apart with surgical precision, in a spell that saw him claim 2/9 in five overs.
QUOTE: “I couldn’t really sleep. I was awake at 2am (on Christmas Day), and I wanted to chip and putt, but I didn’t want to knock on anyone’s door and wake them up.” — Marco Jansen, after being told on Christmas Eve that he’d be making his Test debut.
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CONDITIONS: A darn sight better than day two. Warm and sunny, it allowed the pitch to dry, firm up and get quicker. The ‘sponginess’ of the first day, meant the pitch marks have hardened too which will increase the unpredictability of the bounce as the match continues — which is all to India’s advantage.
IOL Sport