India vs South Africa: The 2nd Test ended in less that two days.© AFP
For the first time in 23 years, India have drawn a Test series in South Africa. It happened in a dramatic situation as the Indian cricket team won the second Test of the two-match series in less than five sessions. Only 107 overs were played as it became the shortest ever match in the format’s history. Right from Day 1 dramatic scenes started unravelling in Cape Town as 23 wickets fell. First South Africa got dismissed for 55, then India were bowled out for 153. After South Africa score 176 in the second innings, the match ended in the second session of the second day with India supassing the 79-run target with seven wickets to spare.
Industralist Anand Mahindra had an interesting take on the game. “Don’t think I can watch any more of the #SAvsIND match. Can’t handle the G-force being generated at this speed of play…,” Anand Mahindra wrote in a post on X.
Don’t think I can watch any more of the #SAvsIND match.
Can’t handle the G-force being generated at this speed of play… pic.twitter.com/c00OvORfEU— anand mahindra (@anandmahindra) January 4, 2024
Talking about the Day 2 action of the second Test, Jasprit Bumrah, India’s priceless fast bowling mean machine, produced a hostile spell to guide India to a series-levelling seven-wicket victory against South Africa in the shortest game ever played in Test history.
Bumrah (6/61 in 13.5 overs), the master practitioner of fast bowling, knocked the stuffing out of South Africa’s middle-order in a menacing morning spell though Aiden Markram (106 off 103 balls) fought like a lone ranger on a burning deck to take South Africa to 176 in 36.5 overs at stroke of lunch on day two.
A target of 79 even on the toughest of tracks wasn’t exactly a tall order and young Yashasvi Jaiswal (28) threw his bat around before skipper Rohit Sharma (16 not out) completed the formalities in the company of Shreyas Iyer (4 not out off 6) in just 12 overs.
This was India’s first victory at Newlands in seven attempts and one that would be remembered for the hostility exhibited by two Indian fast bowlers – Bumrah and Mohammed Siraj, who produced a career-best six-wicket haul to bowl out South Africa for 55 in the first innings.
The series-levelling win gave Rohit the bragging rights of being only the second skipper after Mahendra Singh Dhoni (2010-11) to draw a series in the ‘Rainbow Nation’.
With PTI inputs
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