South Africa vs India: Batting collapses in test match 2024 in Cape Town. South Africa were out for 55 before India lost their last six wickets without scoring any further runs. Some 23 wickets fell, including six for naught, on a turbulent opening day in Cape Town. This was the first time that a team had lost six wickets without scoring any runs in 2522 Test matches.
South Africa: 55 (Warren 15, Siraj 6-15, Mukesh 2-0) and 62 for 3 (Markram 36*, Mukesh 2-25)
India 153 for 3, 36 behind by runs (Kohli 46, Rohit 39, Ngidi 3 -30).
India broke that unwanted record in the afternoon session when they were all out at 153 for 4 with 11 balls to spare after South Africa made 55.
Despite that collapse, India was still in the lead on a Newlands pitch that offered tremendous seam movement and variable bounce all day.
It was very difficult for the batsmen to bat as the old ball was also not behaving well on the surface, especially when the bowlers forced them to play shots. The incident of the highest number of wickets falling in a day in Test cricket has happened only once in this century.
Batting collapsed in Test Match 2024 in Cape Town
In his final Test, Dean Elgar became the second player after Australia’s Jack Barrett to be dismissed twice in the same day. 1890 was Barrett’s last Test.
Elgar chose to bat first and South Africa was out in 23.2 overs in the first innings when Elgar was bowled inside out by Mohammed Siraj for 4 runs.
Thanks to Siraj’s 9-3-15-6 spell with the new ball, South Africa scored 55 runs in a session, which is the lowest score in Test cricket against India.
India took the lead in less than ten overs with Rohit Sharma playing run-a-ball in the early overs. But due to Lungi Ngidi’s triple strike, South Africa’s situation became better albeit late.
Even though he was out earlier that day, Aiden Markram managed to level the score in South Africa’s second innings, taking 51 balls. On the surface, it looks even bigger, but India still has a huge lead of 36.
With only 55 shots attempted in their opening innings, South Africa were not in control. Out on fifty-five runs. Thus, one in every five errors had a significant cost associated with it.
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This applies to India also. He lacked control in the 50 shots he played. Once again at a ratio of 1 in 5. Overall, there were only seven double-digit scores in the three innings. If Thursday’s match ends in less than 34.1 overs, it will be a short test.
Siraj was the one who created havoc on Wednesday by hitting outside edges and decent lengths. Although Siraj’s new ball spell was equally fast in Centurion, he was unlucky due to wickets and bad luck in the first Test.
However, to suggest that Siraj’s success in Cape Town was the result of pure coincidence would be an insult to his abilities.
With Elgar and Tony De Zorzi trapped on the middle and leg lines, at deep short leg and leg slip, Siraj was probing around or outside the off stump against right-handed batsmen. He left one out after bringing the close catchers into play and taking out the stumps.
Before the ball fell back into Elgar’s hands, he took the bait and pitched to the nearest catchers; He hung one outside. Elgar accepted the bait and took the ball into his hands before it fell back onto his stumps.
Siraj had De Zorzi easily caught at short leg and KL Rahul had him caught on the leg side. However, there was controversy in Cape Town over the firing of David Bedingham.
After Siraj bowled the ball on length, the ball went to third slip and went straight into the gloves of Bedingham.
After the dismissal of Shardul Thakur, Mukesh Kumar took over the responsibility of the tail batsmen and came into attack in the 20th over.
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After this, Rohit went to Ngidi and Andre Berger, who were not as accurate as Kagiso Rabada with the new ball.
During his opening over, Ngidi bowled a floaty half-volley, looking as if he was playing his first first-class match in over a year. Berger also made a serious mistake, before regaining his length and hitting the shoulder of Rohit’s bat.
Apart from this, Burger dismissed Shubman Gill (36) and Shreyas Iyer (0) for zero and reduced India’s score to 110 runs for 4 wickets.
Nevertheless, Virat Kohli looked comfortable in the middle and proceeded to hit his shots, especially drives. When Ngidi returned to the attack, he bowled at full speed, hit the deck with even more power and ran faster.
He dismissed Jasprit Bumrah, Rahul and Ravindra Jadeja, who batted at number eight in the absence of Thakur, in the 34th over.
Handling the large seam movement and inconsistent bounce proved quite challenging. By scoring 6 runs at 0 himself, Kohli contributed to the collapse. However, on that important day, India’s batsmen contributed significantly to the team’s performance.
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