India wallop Proteas on back of brilliant Shami

Ravindra Jadeja and Mohammad Shami claimed nine wickets between them as India dismissed South Africa for 191 to win the first test match by 203 runs on the fifth afternoon at the YS Rajasekhara Reddy Stadium in Visakhapatnam on Sunday.

Resuming at 11-1 the tourists lost wickets regularly through the morning session on a pitch offering consistently low bounce and slumped to 70-8 before Senuran Muthusamy (49*) and Dane Piedt (56) offered some belated resistance with an unexpected but accomplished stand of 91 for the ninth wicket either side of lunch.

Theunis de Bruyn (10) attempted to cut a delivery from offspinner Ravichandran Ashwin which spun viciously and kept low to bowl him and the next three batsmen were all clean bowled by seamer Shami.

Temba Bavuma (0) had no chance against a delivery which virtually rolled but Faf du Plessis (13) was ill-advised to play no shot at an inswinger. Quinton de Kock (0) was also undone by an inswinger which crashed into middle stump between bat and pad.

Left-arm spinner Jadeja claimed the next three wickets starting with a stunning, one-handed catch off his own bowling to remove opener Aiden Markram (39). Vernon Philander and Keshav Maharaj both failed to score before being trapped lbw by Jadeja’s infamous quicker delivery.

Jadeja, who trapped Dean Elgar (2) lbw on the fourth evening, finished with 4-87 while Shami, who finally bowled Piedt off an inside edge having faced 107 balls and struck nine fours and a six, claimed 5-35 when last man Kagiso Rabada (18) edged to the ‘keeper.

'HARD-FOUGHT MATCH'

“To put a score like that (431) on the board in the first innings was a really good effort by us but unfortunately, we couldn’t do it again,” said Faf du Plessis after the match. “I thought it was a hard-fought test match on a good pitch and a very good contest.

“When a fifth-day pitch starts misbehaving like that, that’s fine, that’s part of test cricket. But up until the last final morning we competed really well,” Du Plessis said.

Given the lack of success for South Africa’s three spinners Du Plessis defended the team’s decision not to opt for a third seamer before the match.

“After a game like that you can always think about the ‘what ifs’ and what you might have been able to change, but up until the last day the seamers weren’t really in the game that much. It was only on the last morning when Shami was bowling reverse swing on a wicket that was keeping low – before that the seamers job had just been a ‘holding’ one,” Du Plessis said.

“So you could say that we should have played another seamer but look at who took the wickets, Ashwin took seven in the first innings. We would have liked one of our spinners to have taken three, four or five wickets in the second innings so that’s where we would like to improve, getting those four or five wickets in the second innings.

“We were very positive in the change room before the start of play, but things happen very quickly on day five and that’s the nature of the beast in test cricket, it should be like that, it’s perfect for test cricket. One or two balls hit cracks and kept low and there’s nothing you can do about that, just move on to the next test,” Du Plessis concluded.

TWIN CENTURIES

The test match will be remembered for a number of outstanding performances most notably the twin centuries by Rohit Sharma who hit 13 sixes during his innings of 176 and 127, the most by a single batsman in a test match.

Ashwin’s 7-145 in the first innings saw him reach 350 wickets in just 66 tests, level with Sri Lankan spin genius Muttiah Muralitharan while South Africa will take heart from the hundreds by Elgar (160) and de Kock (111) which helped the tourists fight back from 63-4 to a total of 431 in the first innings.

Indian captain Virat Kohli said the pitch played “really well for the first three days” and that losing a full session on the first day had made the pursuit of victory harder than it might have been:

“But when you put 500 on the board you’re always ahead of the game and, even though the opposition showed a bit of resistance we still had a lead to play with and that allowed us to express ourselves in the second innings once we had laid the platform,” Kohli said.

“Rohit was outstanding in both innings and Mayank (215) was brilliant in the first innings. It was a hard grind, especially because of the (hot) weather conditions and the pitch slowing down, but very satisfying,” Kohli said.

“I just wanted to enjoy the moment, opening for the first time,” Rohit said before thanking the captain and selectors for “giving me the opportunity.”

“I am really thankful for the runs but winning the test match is more important because we all know how important those (Test Championship) 40 points are. We did pretty much everything right today, and in the test,” Rohit said.

The second test begins on Thursday, 10 October in Pune.

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INDIA: Rohit Sharma, Mayank Agarwal, Cheteshwar Pujara, Virat Kohli (capt), Ajinkya Rahane, Hanuma Vihari, Wriddhiman Saha (wk), Ravindra Jadeja, Ravichandran Ashwin, Ishant Sharma, Mohammed Shami

SOUTH AFRICA: Aiden Markram, Dean Elgar, Theunis de Bruyn, Temba Bavuma, Faf du Plessis (capt), Quinton de Kock (wk), Vernon Philander, Senuran Muthusamy, Keshav Maharaj, Dane Piedt, Kagiso Rabada