Centurion,
\nIndia surged back into contention against South Africa after two late run outs late on Saturday, including the key wicket of Hashim Amla, saw the hosts slip to 269\/6 at the close on the opening day of the second Test here today. South Africa seemed set for a big first innings total when they reached 246\/3 but some brilliant fielding and poor decision-making combined to rattle their middle-order and leave the honours even after the first day.<\/p>\n
Home captain Faf du Plessis is not out on 24 and will resume his innings on Sunday with Keshav Maharaj (10) on a wicket that is expected to quicken over the next few days.<\/p>\n
Amla looked in total control of his innings and struck 14 fours in his 82 before being called through for a risky single by du Plessis. The bowler, Hardik Pandya, reacted quickly and his speed to the ball, swivel and quick release to the bowler\u2019s end found Amla two feet short.<\/p>\n
Quinton de Kock was then out for a first ball duck, caught at slip by India captain Virat Kohli off the bowling of hard-working Ravichandran Ashwin (3\/90), who sent down an impressive 31 overs on the opening day.<\/p>\n
The hosts\u2019 misery was compounded when Vernon Philander was also out without scoring, charging down the wicket for a run as du Plessis screamed at him from the non-striker\u2019s end to stop. Both players ended up on the same side of the wicket.<\/p>\n
The poor half-hour undid the excellent work of opener Aiden Markram earlier as he compiled an eye-catching 94 before being caught by wicketkeeper Parthiv Patel off Ashwin, denied a third Test century in seven innings.<\/p>\n
Dean Elgar (31) was Ashwin\u2019s other victim, while impressive seamer Ishant Sharma (1\/32) induced an edge from the dangerous AB de Villiers (20) onto his own wicket.<\/p>\n
The wicket has also shown some variable bounce already and is expected to break up on fourth and fifth days. South Africa have selected uncapped seamer Lungi Ngidi as a replacement for the injured Dale Steyn, the only change to their side from the 72-run first Test victory in Cape Town.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Centurion, India surged back into contention against South Africa after two late run outs late on Saturday, including the key wicket of Hashim Amla, saw the hosts slip to 269\/6 at the close on the opening day of the second Test here today. South Africa seemed set for a big first innings total when they […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18588,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[122],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18587","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18587","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18587"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18587\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18589,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18587\/revisions\/18589"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18588"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18587"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18587"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18587"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}