SA fight back to level series 1-1

Hosts South Africa fought back to level the series 1-1, beating India by seven wickets at the Wanderers in Johannesburg.

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By VoN Sports Team

Hosts South Africa fought back to level the series 1-1, beating India by seven wickets at the Wanderers in Johannesburg. This was sweet revenge for South Africa for the Centurion defeat. In the rain-restricted Test captain Dean Elgar led the team’s run-chase (target was 240) with an unbeaten 96.

Indian skipper Virat Kohli, who ruled out with upper back spasms, is already better, having been at the nets the last couple of days, fielding and running around and should be fine for the third Test, according to KL Rahul, the stand-in skipper. The third Test is at Newlands, Cape Town.

India won the toss and elected to bat, hitting up 202. Rahul scored 50 off 133 deliveries, as the other opener, Mayank Agarwal  managed to score 26 from 37 deliveries. Later Ravichandran Ashwin added 46 off 50 deliveries.

Restricting the Indian total was South Africa’s Marco Jansen, who took four wickets for 31 runs and Kagiso Rabada (3 for 64).

Coming in to bat South Africa Scored 229, Temba Bavuma scoring 51 runs off 62 deliveries and Keegan Petersen scoring 62 off 118. This was despite India’s Shardul Thakur returning great bowling figures of seven  for 61. Two more wickets were taken by Mohammed Shami  for 52 runs.

In the second Innings India failed to make a comeback and c collapsed for 266, Kagiso Rabada grabbing 3 wickets for 77 and Marco Jansen 3 for 67. For India Cheteshwar Pujara scored 53, Ajinkya Rahane 58 and Hanuma Vihari, who came in for the injured Kohli, scored an unbeaten 40.

The final chase was somewhat easy for South Africa, though the weather intervened more than once and South Africa scored 243 for 3 to reach the winning target, despite Ravichandran Ashwin and Mohammed Shami picking up 3 wickets each.

South Africa skipper Dean Elgar (28 & 96*) was declared Man of the Match.

A war of words
The match was not without flare-ups as Jasprit Bumrah had a heated confrontation with Marco Jansen during the 54th over (third day) after receiving a blow on his body. With India taking their lead past the 200-run mark, tail-ender Bumrah tried to pull the fourth delivery of the 54th over. He missed the short delivery, and it deflected off his body and rolled to point.

Jasprit Bumrah had a heated confrontation with Marco Jansen

The two interacted aggressively on the pitch for a few seconds. Reacting to the incident, former South Africa speedster Dale Steyn advised Bumrah to “learn to take it.”
“I swear I remember Bumrah doing the same thing to a Mr James Anderson not too long ago. Learn to take it kid,” Dale Steyn replied to a Tweet that read: “That look from Marco at Bumrah. Yep, if you dish it out you will receive it.”