Cape Town: The Indian top-order was left exposed by some fiery pace bowling as South Africa claimed the prized scalps of Murali Vijay, Shikhar Dhawan and skipper Virat Kohli to leave India tottering at 28/3 at the end of the first day’s play in Newlands on Friday.
Bhuvneshwar Kumar had given India a flying start earlier in the day as he dismissed the top three South African batsmen in-Dean Elgar (0), Aiden Markram (5) and the dangerous Hashim Amla (3) to leave the hosts reeling at 12/3 at one stage. But former skipper AB De Villiers and captain Faf Du Plessis joined forces to bail the team out of trouble with a solid 114-run partnership. Both De Villiers and Du Plessis negotiated the threat posed by the Indian pacers as they looked to carry their team to a position from where they can dictate proceedings.
But debutant Jasprit Bumrah made his presence felt as he scalped the big wicket of De Villiers (65) off the last ball of the 33rd over to put an end to the partnership and drag India back into the game. Du Plessis (62) too fell in quick time after he was caught by Wriddhiman Saha off the bowling of Hardik Pandya to tilt the balance of the match towards India’s favour.
Quinton De Kock then stitched a 60-run stand with Vernon Philander and just when it looked that the hosts are slowly clawing their way back again, Bhuvneshwar Kumar struck again and removed the wicket-keeper batsman for a well-made 43. Mohammad Shami, who couldn’t quite find success against the Proteas top-order went through the defenses of Philander (23) before Ravichandran Ashwin cleaned up the tail, first sending back Keshav Maharaj with a brilliant run-out and then scalping the wickets of Kagiso Rabada (26) and Morne Morkel (2) to restrict South Africa to just 286 in their first innings.
In reply, Murali Vijay and Shikhar Dhawan took India off to a sedate start with a 16-run stand before the South African pacers got into the act. First it was the comeback man Dale Steyn, who sent back Shikhar Dhawan (16) by taking a simple catch of his own bowling. His opening partner Murali Vijay was the next man to fall as Philander had him caught at gully by Elgar for just one run.
Reeling at 18/2, India needed skipper Kohli to step up and perform but the ghosts of that horrible 2014 tour of England returned to haunt him after he edged a ball by Morkel at around the sixth stump to De Kock, who took a blinder of a catch to send back the skipper for just five runs. The hosts would look up to Cheteshwar Pujara (5 n.o) and Rohit Sharma to bail the team out of trouble on the second day.
Brief scores-
India 28/3 (Shikhar Dhawan 16, Cheteshwar Pujara 5 n.o; Morne Morkel 1/0) trail South Africa 286 all out (AB De Villiers 65, Faf Du Plessis 62; Bhuvneshwar Kumar 5/87) by 258 runs