Ngidi peppers top order as India slip to 35/3 in chase of 287
Ngidi got Kohli with a similar delivery to the one that snared Vijay, except this ended in an lbw. © BCCI
At the crease were Cheteshwar Pujara, batting on 11, with Parthiv Patel on 5. Parthiv had been promoted ahead of Rohit Sharma in the batting order, perhaps to have a right-left combination at the crease. But with Virat Kohli, the first-innings centurion, gone, the climb for India looked Everest-like.
South Africa would have aimed at getting a lot more than the 258 all out they eventually ended up with, having been 90 for 2 overnight, with AB de Villiers in sublime form. But India’s bowlers kept plugging away, and though the fielding still wasn’t top notch, apart from de Villiers, no batsman could consistently dominate the bowling.
India’s batsmen though, faced a bigger test. Against the quicker pace of South Africa’s bowlers, dealing with the vagaries of a pitch where a few balls were keeping low, and with the pressure of a fourth-innings chase, they began on the back foot.
And then, M Vijay was done in by a Kagiso Rabada delivery that kept low, reminiscent of how Jasprit Bumrah had got his first two wickets on Monday, while KL Rahul let slip a golden opportunity to make an ironclad case for his presence in the starting XI, gifting Lungi Ngidi his wicket with an ill-conceived steer straight to Keshav Maharaj at point. With the fielder there and three in the slips, there was less than zero percentage to the shot.
The body blow came with Ngidi getting Kohli with a similar delivery to the one that snared Vijay, except this ended in an lbw. The Indian captain reviewed, more out of hope than anything else, but had to go on his way.
When South Africa began, de Villiers carried on from where he had left off the previous night, picking off the bowlers, flicking and driving with ease. At the other end, Dean Elgar showed the value of putting a price on one’s wicket — as would Faf du Plessis later — and progressed to a remarkable half-century of his own. Remarkable because apart from the missed chance on Monday evening when he was on 29, Elgar never really looked entirely comfortable at the crease for any length of time. And yet, he stayed, he gutsed it out, he forgot about the previous ball if the next one was a loose one that needed to be put away.
De
Villiers’s wicket came against the run of play, with Mohammed Shami
suddenly finding the spot and the venom to get a ball to lift sharply
off a length. © BCCI
De Villiers’s wicket came against the run of play, with Mohammed Shami, who started poorly, suddenly finding the spot and the venom to get a ball to lift sharply off a length. De Villiers was shaping to cut, but the ball surprised him, took his glove and went to the wicketkeeper to end an innings of 80 off only 121 balls. It broke a partnership of 141, the highest of the series so far, and once de Villiers was gone, it was as if batting was suddenly not as easy as it had seemed.
Elgar fell shortly after, done in by Shami’s short-ball trap and disappointed with himself after an innings of grit and character that brought 61.
Quinton de Kock’s stay in the middle was possibly the most surreal passage of play. In Shami’s next over, he had three consecutive edges go through the wicketkeeper and the slips, all finding the fence. Shami pulled his length back for the fourth ball, de Kock hung his bat out again and this time Parthiv Patel got an easy catch.
Du Plessis had looked solid all the while, except for a tough chance at leg-slip off R Ashwin that Rahul could only get a hand to, and in Vernon Philander, he found an ally willing to put his head down. India bowled dry during the 46-run stand for the sixth wicket, but they couldn’t separate the pair for 26 overs. Time was not a factor for South Africa; building the lead and tiring the bowlers so that they could cash in later was of more value.
Just when the two began opening up though, Philander fell to a tame pull off Ishant. He had made a valuable 26.
Maharaj couldn’t contribute, snared early by an Ishant lifter outside off, but Rabada hung around for a valuable half hour as du Plessis added the runs. The South African captain eventually fell for 48.
Shami, with 4 for 49, had the best figures, but he wasn’t India’s best bowler for large parts of the innings. Bumrah had 3 for 70, with Ishant taking two wickets and Ashwin finishing the innings to end a frustrating tenth-wicket stand of 13 between the pair of Ngidi and Morne Morkel.
As it turned out, it would be nothing compared to the frustrations that India would have felt after their batting stint.
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