Bhuvneshwar Kumar ran through South African top order before the middle order came to hosts’ fore as they fought back from 12/3 to post 286 runs in the first innings of the first Test in Cape Town.
Opting to bat first, South Africa didn’t have a good start as newly-wed Bhuvneshwar picked a wicket in each of his first three overs. He first dismissed Dean Elgar for nought before dismissing Aiden Markram for 5. Mighty Hashim Amla was the next batsmen to leave Africa in tantrums after scoring just 3 runs.
Middle order revives Hosts
Form 12/3, South Africa raced to 202/5. AB de Villiers top scored with 65 and added 114 runs with Faf du Plessis, who scored 62. Quinton de Kock then scored 43 at a strike rate over 100 and Keshav Maharaj added another 35 runs. Kagiso Rabada then scored 26 and Dale Steyn added another 16 useful runs.
Useful small contributions
After a century stand by ABD and Du Plessis, there were number of small contributions from the lower order. Though they might not look very great or big but their contributions were significant. 60 runs for 6th wicket, 19 runs for 7th wicket, 37 runs for 8th wicket and 22 runs for the ninth wicket took Proteas from 142/5 to 280/9.
Bumrah completes golden trio
Jasprit Bumrah had dismissed Steve Smith and David Warner for his first victims in ODIs and T20Is respectively and added another great player in that list when he dismissed AB de Villiers for his maiden Test wicket.
Ashwin’s maiden wicket in Africa
Ravichandran Ashwin picked up his first Test wicket in South Africa when he dismissed Kagiso Rabada for 26. He then went on to pick another wicket after Morne Morkel was plumbed in front of wickets.
While Bhuvneshwar Kumar picked up 4 wickets, Mohammed Shami, Jasprit Bumrah and Hardik Pandya picked up 1 wicket a piece while Ravichandran Ashwin took 2.