India's captain Rishab Pant walks off the field after losing his wicket on the third day of the second cricket test match between India and South Africa in Guwahati, India, Saturday, Nov. 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Anupam Nath)
When Rishabh Pant pranced down the pitch at Marco Jansen’s spongy length ball in the second over after Tea, his irritated remark to Kuldeep Yadav from the previous day popped back into discussion, in a more perplexing context.
“Mazak bana rakha hai Test cricket ko (you guys have made Test cricket a joke),” the stand-in captain had bellowed on Sunday when Kuldeep was fiddling with the field at the start of an over, courting the danger of a third time-wasting warning and potential penalty runs.
But when Pant went fishing for an ugly hoick against the menacing Jansen, his words encapsulated the implosion on India’s big batting day, where they were expected to slice the heft of South Africa’s first innings 487.
The skipper also burnt a review despite the obvious nick to the wicketkeeper. Pant’s impetuosity also underlined the ineptitude of his team in tempering their approach according to the phases of play.
South Africa’s players celebrate as India’s Sai Sudharsan, right, walks off the field after losing his wicket on the third day of the second cricket test match between India and South Africa in Guwahati, India, Saturday, Nov. 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Anupam Nath)
Pant had seen an ill-timed pull from Dhruv Jurel 20 minutes ago from the non-striker’s end. The otherwise intuitive No. 4 took on Jansen’s rising delivery, angled across him, to open his account, but the cross-batted shot faltered and landed in the hands of mid-on.
Pant only played into the hands of Jansen, who proceeded to scoop up Ravindra Jadeja and Nitish Reddy with rip-snorters. Those were the two dismissals where the left-armer’s skills were more responsible than any batting error.
When Nitish’s flailing arms could not keep a short delivery away from a flying Aiden Markramin the cordon, the gulf in skills and temperament only widened between the world Test champions and the hosts.
The one-dimensional decision-making pores into the core batting approach, where two successive deliveries on different lengths leave batters befuddled. That marked the end of the openers despite their largely controlled counter against Jansen in his first spell.
In the opening over of his marathon 21-over spell, off-spinner Simon Harmer had KL Rahul streakily defend a fuller ball pitched on the off-stump line from inside his crease. The batsman’s left foot eventually managed to cover the ball but signalled a deficiency.
In the 22nd over, bowled by Keshav Maharaj, Rahul tapped a short ball through covers for two runs. Maharaj’s subsequent drifter from wide of the stumps on a fuller length snipped past the top half of Rahul’s bat. The tepid prod failed to cover the spin and bounce before it kicked up to the slips, suggesting that the Karnataka batter hadn’t wiped the slate clean after the previous delivery.
India’s Dhruv Jurel walks off the field after losing his wicket on the third day of the second cricket test match between India and South Africa in Guwahati, India, Saturday, Nov. 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Anupam Nath)
On a day when he got past Jansen’s initial spell unscathed, Jaiswal’s exuberance was the major strand of hope for India to slash the big deficit. Arranging a slog-sweep assortment off Maharaj and Harmer to keep the ball boys square of the wicket busy, Jaiswal reached his first fifty in seven innings before losing the plot to the floating two-ball theory.
He dead-batted the first delivery of Harmer’s 10th over on the full. The subsequent delivery that gripped and turned away still forced Jaiswal’s indiscretion. His uncharacteristic waft with a near-vertical bat found the thick edge to short third, triggering a chaotic Indian collapse, comprising wilted minds, hands and feet.
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