South Africa 489 and 26 for 0 (Rickelton 13*, Markram 12*) lead India 201 (Jaiswal 58, Washington 48, Jansen 6-48, Harmer 3-64) by 314 runs
Marco Jansen all but ensured the world Test champions South Africa a rare series win in India by bowling the hosts out for 201, securing a first-innings lead of 288 with a little over two days left. On a pitch still hard to beat the defensive bat on, India collapsed from 95 for 1 to 122 for 7, losing all hopes of coming back to win and level the series after conceding 489 to South Africa, who already held the 1-0 lead.
Things happened quickly in the second hour of the day as the odd ball turned or bounced more than usual for the spinners Simon Harmer and Keshav Maharaj. Washington Sundar and Kuldeep Yadav then batted together for nearly 35 overs without trouble to show it was just the early moisture that helped the odd ball turn.
Jansen, though, took the pitch out of the equation with aggressive short-pitched bowling to take his fourth five-wicket haul in Test cricket to go with his momentum-shifting 93 and an excellent catch to get rid of India’s only half-centurion in the series, Yashasvi Jaiswal.Nobody has ever taken as many wickets with bouncers in a single innings in India since the advent of ball-by-ball records. Jansen took out Dhruv Jurel, Ravindra Jadeja, Nitish Kumar Reddy and Jasprit Bumrah with his nasty bouncers on an otherwise placid surface. On Ian Botham’s birthday, Jansen’s six-for went a long way towards emulating the greatest all-round performance by a visiting player in India: a century and 13 wickets in 1980 in the Jubilee Test.
Before Jansen broke the game open with a spell of 8-1-18-4 with a fairly old ball either side of tea, the first session break in India’s eastern-most Test, South Africa benefitted from some luck and possible panic in the young Indian batting line-up. Not since the 1960s have India had Nos. 3 and 4 with just one hundred and fewer than 1000 career runs between them. That this is being played in the east, that we have lost 10 overs on the first two days because of the early sunset, might have had something to do with some of the frenetic batting from India, who needed a win in this match to prevent a second home series defeat in 12 months after 12 years of none.
Only four balls jumped or turned more than usual in more than an hour after the fast bowlers operated for the first half hour. India looked solid in getting to 65 without any loss, but then two of these four balls that did more than usual ended up in the wickets of openers, one long hop settled with short midwicket, and two batters fell trying to force the pace when only one batter has been able to dominate the bowling in this Test: Jansen.
KL Rahul got the first of the good ones, from Maharaj, who bowled this at 79kmph, well slower than any of India’s fingerspinners. Harmer, who has been excellent – sharp turn or not – then bowled the second one. Jaiswal had looked in control both when defending and attacking, but he checked his back-foot shot when this delivery stopped and stood up. Jansen, who had already denied him six runs on the cut with his long levers at backward point, took the catch diving forward. Not many could have even got to this on the full.
B Sai Sudharsan, back as the No. 3 after missing the last Test, was conscious to not get caught back to full deliveries, which has been his undoing in the past. He played two lovely cover-drives as well, but ended up pulling a short ball from Harmer just to the left of short midwicket, where Ryan Rickelton took a rebound while diving.
It was all Jansen after this – plus a little bit of chasing the game. Jurel was kept runless for 10 balls when he tried to hook a wide bouncer from Jansen. It was too high and too wide for him to be able to control. That this came about in the last over before tea made it worse.
Post-tea, captain Rishabh Pant tried to counterattack by charging at Jansen. All he managed was an edge through to the keeper. Reddy and Jadeja got brutes. Reddy had to throw his hands in front of his face in self defence, and Aiden Markram took a catch to match the earlier two, diving from second slip to gully. Jadeja tried to sway out of one’s line, but it followed him, hit the shoulder and then took the periscope on the way to second slip. On average, Jansen could bowl a metre fuller than Siraj for the ball to be a bouncer, giving them less time to adjust. And Jansen bowled when the pitch had lost pace and bounce.
Now that Jansen was done, the moisture had dried out and any thoughts of pushing for a win dissipated, Washington and Kuldeep defended with ease. No. 3 in the last Test, Washington came close to scoring only the second half-century for India this series, but was outdone by a lovely offbreak from Harmer just before the second new ball became available. Kuldeep registered his longest Test innings, turned down a single to protect Jasprit Bumrah, but couldn’t keep Jansen out. Not that Bumrah could be protected anyway: Jansen ended the innings with another nasty bouncer.
Not having got even a full day’s rest, India’s bowlers were back on the park again. Bumrah created a chance in the first over, but it flew wide of second slip. South Africa went into stumps 314 ahead, only a couple of sessions away from batting India out of the series.
Sidharth Monga is a senior writer at ESPNcricinfo
