Spinners Ravindra Jadeja (4-33) and Ravichandran Ashwin (5-32) did the damage as South Africa, who folded from 11-2 to 12-5 at the start of the day, subsided in a total of 33.1 overs in a little over two hours. What that meant was South Africa needed to score 309 to win the Test and they had lost a couple of wickets by close of play, getting to 32 on the board. Elgar, who was batting beautifully for his 18 of 58 balls with a four and a six, got a thick inside edge on to his pad from Ashwin which Cheteshwar Pujara grabbed easily at silly point.
Advertisement
Dangerman AB de Villiers failed to score while Faf du Plessis was bowled for 10 when the batsman attempted an ugly heave and missed the line of the ball. While India can aim at a clean sweep, South African can win the Test to salvage some pride.
“South Africa must get some credit for the way they fought on the third day”.
The 3rd match was really low scoring as 215 was the highest score out of 4 innings and not even a single player reached to half century.
Gavaskar once again defended the pitch and said the partnership between Faf du Plessis and Hashim Amla proved that there were no demons in the wicket.
Ashwin tops the chart with 24 wickets to his name in the series so far and he was also the leading wicket-taker in the series against Sri Lanka.
“Throughout the series you would have five to six good balls”. In Mishra’s next over, du Plessis played over an attempted pull and was bowled.
Kohli also didn’t forget Amit Mishra’s contribution.
Pacer Kagiso Rabada was Ashwin’s sixth scalp, edging one to skipper Virat Kohli at second slip.
Soon after the break Ashwin dismissed both Duminy and Vilas for 19 and 12 respectively, signalling the end of South Africa’s chances of winning the Test match.
Leg-spinner Imran Tahir, who was surprisingly kept out of the attack till the 25th over as India moved to 82-2, picked up five wickets for 38 runs to restrict the Indian innings.
India take an unassailable 2-0 lead into the fourth and final Test in Delhi next Thursday. His stupendous success on two rank turners in Mohali and Nagpur, particularly, were instrumental in Virat Kohli’s team winning its second consecutive series and ending a stunning South African run of nine years without an overseas series loss.
Advertisement
The Proteas made more runs in the second innings than India but the match was decided by India’s lead of 136 on the first innings.
