Nagpur, Nov 25 India reduced South Africa to 11/2 afer getting bowled out for 215 runs in their first innings on the first day of the third Test at the Vidarbha Cricket Association Stadium here on Wednesday.
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The left hander’s 12 came off 23 balls and 68 minutes and was his third low score in the series after bagging a pair in the opening Test at Mohali followed by an unbeaten 45 in the rained out second game at Bengaluru.
“Dale Steyn won’t probably play in this Test match, I don’t think his injury has recovered fully”, said Amla.
“Not having Dale in the team is a setback because not having the best bowler in the world is never a nice thing”.
Harmer was relentless in his unchanged nine-over spell, but the man who got the only wicket to fall to spin in the session was Dean Elgar, who struck in his third over.
South Africa made one change, with Simon Harmer coming in for Kyle Abbott, with the Proteas playing two quicks and two spinners. After winning what might turn out to be a crucial toss, Virat Kohli’s team was 149 for six and fighting to reach a respectable position.
“Obviously we would have batted first as well. We have had a few and the guys are in good shape, looking in good nick and feeling mentally good about approaching this Test match”, Kohli said at the pre-match press conference here.
Asked about his own poor run in the series, Amla said, “I definitely would have liked to have got more runs in the One-dayers and Tests so far”.
The 27-year-old star batsman also applauded both Australia and New Zealand for agreeing to play the landmark Test in Adelaide and said that every team should be ready to embrace the concept if it works.
Commenting over Kohli’s stance, the former India captain suggested,”He’s standing on middle stump he’s now gone outside the off-stump with that shuffle and he’s again playing around sixth or seventh-stump. So it hasn’t been the free-flowing cricket that we are used to, and hopefully in Nagpur we can get onto the field and give the character performance that South Africa is known for”.
Barring the opening partnership, India kept losing wickets at regular intervals.
The hosts brought in Amit Mishra to partner Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja in a three-man spin attack on a dry pitch which already has wide cracks on the surface. It does allow us to play with risk, but that is the mentality that we came here with, we came here to win the series.
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Morkel bowled Vijay who meant to play through the leg side but missed the ball to be adjudged leg before the wicket (LBW).
