Finance
At the Newlands Cricket Ground here, fast-bowling mainstay Jasprit Bumrah took six wickets in two days to lay the groundwork for India to defeat South Africa by seven wickets and end the two-match series 1-1.
Day Two saw South Africa trailing India, who had scored 153 in their opening innings, by 36 runs at the start of the day. However, they were able to take the lead owing to Aiden Markram’s incredible 106 off 103 balls under duress, particularly because none of his colleagues had scored 20. At the end of lunch, Bumrah was still on fire, bowling South Africa out for 176 with a 6-61 score.
India needed just 12 overs to chase down the mark of 79, and Yashasvi Jaiswal spearheaded the effort with six boundaries in his vigorous 23-ball 28. Even after he was lost, Shubman Gill, Virat Kohli, skipper Rohit Sharma, and short-ball-prone Shreyas Iyer stuck around to smash boundaries and secure India’s historic victory in a Test match in Cape Town.
In addition to tying the series, India won 12 crucial World Test Championship points following a three-day loss in the first Test at Centurion, meaning Dean Elgar ended his career in futility.
At 624 balls (107 overs) and after four and a half sessions, the Cape Town Test match between South Africa and India is now the shortest-ever completed game in the history of the longest format of the game.
Resuming from 62/3, the pitch offered excessive variable bounce and seam movement, Bumrah struck in the very first over of the day by having David Bedingham drive away from the body and nicked behind to wicketkeeper K.L Rahul.
Despite South Africa finding runs via streaky boundaries, Bumrah had another scalp when Kyle Verreynne tried to pull a short-of-length ball but holed out to mid-on. But Markram had other ideas on a tough pitch, playing a gorgeous drive off Mukesh Kumar to reach his fifty in 68 balls.
Bumrah, though, continued to pick scalps as he took a stunning return catch on Marco Jansen’s chip and had Keshav Maharaj drive to gully for picking his five-wicket haul. With wickets falling from the other end, Markram went for the attack, pulling Mukesh and bringing out the on-drive against Bumrah for boundaries.
He lofted and cut off Mohammed Siraj for two boundaries and had a reprieve on 73 when Rahul dropped a simple catch. Markram took a liking to Prasidh Krishna, dispatching him for two fours and two sixes in an over yielding 20 runs.
Markram then hit back-to-back fours off Bumrah to reach a scintillating century and dedicated the hundred to his captain Dean Elgar, who was jubilant in the dressing room. His brilliant knock was ended by Siraj when he mistimed the slog to long-off, where captain Rohit Sharma took the catch and threw the ball into the ground in frustration.
In the next over, Kagiso Rabada hit the ball straight to mid-off against Prasidh and Nandre Burger along with Lungi Ngidi added 14 runs for the final wicket, before Bumrah had the latter edging to the third slip to keep South Africa’s lead to 78 and take his sixth scalp of the innings.
Jaiswal launched an offensive from the start of the chase, hurling the kitchen sink at each ball to score numerous runs. Together with Rohit, he helped India reach 44/0 in just 33 balls. Jaiswal did his job, however he was sent out to mid-wicket. Rabada castled Gill on the low bounce, and Jansen strangled Kohli down leg. After that, Iyer’s winning boundary over mid-on turned the unpredictable contest in India’s favor.
Scores: South Africa 55 and 176 all out in 36.5 overs (Aiden Markram 106; Jasprit Bumrah 6-61) lost to India 153 and 80/3 in 12 overs (Yashasvi Jaiswal 28; Marco Jansen 1-15) by seven wickets
Source:IANS
