India vs South Africa highlights, 1st Test Day 2: SA 93/7 at stumps vs IND in Kolkata

Well, that's the end of the day. The game continues to move forward in this Test match quite quickly. Well, only teams who have played on this can answer if they liked the wicket or not. But regardless, it is highly likely the game is going to end tomorrow. South Africa has a lead of 63 runs. If they somehow manage to add another 60 runs to their score, we might be seeing an interesting chase on the cards.

We have 13 overs remaining here, and the rate at which the sun is dipping, it is tough to see how the game will go past 4:30 in the evening. However, it should not matter too much as India is highly unlikely to resort to pace here given how the spinners will have operated. As per South Africa they were at one point in the day under the threat of getting bundled out but things have gotten a bit slow as Bavuma is playing solid hand from one end.

Axar Patel has got another wicket here. It was a fuller one and a bit of nothing shot of Verreyenne. While having attacking intent is not wrong but the shot selection has not been right. The camera panned out to Ashwell Prince, and he looked in a bit of disbelief. This is unfolding quite quickly here for South Africa on Day 2. Temba Bavuma is in the middle on 25, and he needs some support from the other end to put some runs on the board.

It has been a good passage for India. Rishabh Pant has kept his spinners going from both ends, but from time to time, it is not a bad ploy for Pant to bring his seamers back and bowl 2-3 overs and hit stumps consistently. If the oddball keeps low or bounces too much, that will create doubts in the minds of the batters. As we update, Jadeja has got another here and it is Tristian Stubbs who falls.

Captaincy from Rishabh Pant has been quite stunning here in the short period. Despite Kuldeep Yadav picking a wicket, he made the bowling change required, and Jadeja has done the trick. Also, it is one of those wickets with different bounce, with one ball turning and one ball going straight and also up and down. Jadeja keeps targetting the stumps and will keep getting his natural variation in.

Mulder, before getting out in the first innings, did look in decent touch. His strike rotation and stroke making were quite fine-tuned. Today, once again, he has started well he has faced 20 deliveries. He, alongside Temba Bavuma needs to build a partnership here. As per India, they have to continue with more of the same by continuously picking wickets. Any target over 120 will be quite tricky for India to chase in the fourth innings.

Well, well, it is two left-arm spinners starting from either end. Ravindra Jadeja and Axar Patel are very similar in style as bowlers, and as we update, one of them has struck here. Aiden Markram tried to sweep the ball against Jadeja and got the top edge. Dhruv Jurel at short-leg took a lovely catch. South Africa has lost their second wicket on either side of the Tea break here. They need to be careful here, or given the way this pitch is behaving, it might be an embarrassing outing for them.

Well, Kuldeep Yadav has got a wicket here just before the Tea break. Rickelton went on the back foot and tried to work the ball on the leg side, but missed it. India has got what it wants here, wicket before the break, as per South Africa, they lost another one without even getting past the lead. We will be right back, folks, after the break. Do stay with us. It will be interesting to see if Wiaan Mulder comes out to bat or will South Africa alters the order after Tea comes up.

Shubman Gill is not available, hence the skipper on the field is Rishabh Pant. He has thrown the ball to Axar and Jasprit Bumrah. They are operating from either end, and there is some turn available for Axar already in this innings. More than the bowling changes, it will be interesting to see how Pant manages his fields here. India has only a cushion of 30 runs in the lead here.

A token of appreciation to Marco Jansen, what a spell he has bowled in the absence of Kagiso Rabada. With his height, he always gives South Africa that extra dimension and on this wicket, which has uneven bounce. He has been at the stumps through every spell he has bowled and allowed the ball to do the rest. His growth in his bowling maturity has been quite unclear in the last year or so.

Axar Patel is looking to attack here. He has played sumptuous square-cut. South Africa has to be a bit careful here because Axar is one of those batters who can hurt them with a quick cameo. Right now, as we update, the lead is 21, and if Axar can strike a few hefty blows, and if that lead stretches to 60-70, it mightbe quite a chunk of total to pull back for South Africa in the second innings.

Well, we have another wicket here, and it is Simon Harmer who picked up Ravindra Jadeja. It was a nice delivery tossed up, and Jadeja stretched forward, tried to fend the ball, and seemed to be beaten in the air. India has lost its way here. India has picked up six wickets in their batting order, and it does seem like it is biting them back. This is beautiful bowling from Harmer, he is getting he has got the right pace and area of the pitch and is bowling in those areas consistently.

Simon Harmer has been bowling beautifully here. He has picked up another wicket in Dhruv Jurel. He did look in good form, did Jurel, but eventually he got undone by the guile of the Jurel. This has been an impressive outing for the off-spinner.

This is an important session in this game. Good thing for South Africa, though, they have picked up the wicket of Rishabh Pant, who can take the session away from them. Dhruv Jurel and Ravindra Jadeja will be looking that India does not lose anymore wickets and builds a partnership here.

That is the end of the morning session. It has been a shared session. The wickets have continued to tumble, and the game has moved further ahead. South Africa, with their superb bowling, has stayed in this game and is continuously chipping away with wickets. Simon Harmer has been magnificent in this morning's session. India needs a couple of good partnerships from here and any lead will be quite handy given how this wicket is playing.

India has six left-handers in this lineup today. And at one point in the innings, two of them will inevitably be batting together and with Jadeja and Pant at the crease here, we might be seeing it right now. What this does is, with them attacking Keshav Maharaj regularly, Bavuma needs to assess his options. While Simon Harmer from one end is bowling well, both of these players will be targeting Maharaj, and with the score they have got, they cannot afford a cameo here.

We have an opportunity missed with Rishabh Pant here. He edged a delivery, and the ball went past the slip Aiden Markram and ran away for a boundary. He is a dangerous player. South Africa cannot miss these opportunities. He is one of those players on wickets like this; he can change the game quite quickly, and South Africa needs to be quite wary of it. They have also brought in Keshav Maharaj into the attack here.

Simon Harmar came into attack he has picked up the wicket of Washington Sundar. It was a beautiful delivery from the off-spinner, the ball pitched and turned away. The length was superb, and Sundar had to play at that delivery, and he induced the edge. Shubman Gill has walked into the middle. Regardless of what has been said about his form in white-ball cricket, his red-ball game has been imperious in recent times.

The good thing about South Africa's bowling today and yesterday has been that they have not let the Indian's go away with the scoring rate. In the past, we have seen India attack the bowling and kill any hopes the opposition had of a comeback. With this approach, although there is security of no wicket might fall but the game stops. Credit to South African bowlers who have hung in there and kept bowling that nice channel.

The pitch has played fine here today, so both Jansen and Maharaj are not getting a lot of this wicket. While they are bowling, there has been no indication of that indifferent bounce we saw yesterday. Usually, the black soil wickets here in India tend to get slower and lower to a degree that picking wickets becomes tougher and tougher. The best ploy for both teams to enforce wickets is what South Africa is doing right now: keep a seamer and spinner operating from either end.

Keshav Maharaj and Marco Jansen have started the day for South Africa, and these are the two best bowlers South Africa has. One thing, though, India needs to be cautious about is that both Rahul and Sundar are more occupiers of the crease rather than stroke-makers. However, with the uneven bounce on this wicket, it is essential that not only these two rotate the strike but also put some pressure back on the bowlers from time to time.

“Really surprised at the lineup because I certainly expected Sai Sudarshan to be playing in this Test match. Who’s going to bat at No.3? That will be the question. Washington Sundar has been slotted to bat at No.3 so India will be bowling first. 4 spinners and 2 fast bowlers,” said Kumble on the official broadcast before the start of play.

MS Dhoni’s last significantly higher than 50 score in the IPL was six years back. Under him, Chennai Super Kings finished 10th last season. At 44, he isn’t the finisher that he used to be. What else does one need to do, or not do, to get dropped from a cricket team?

But Dhoni, in all likelihood, will be retained by CSK today. And this seemingly puzzling call will explain the economics and eccentricities of IPL – the tournament conceived when BCCI thought of marrying entertainment with cricket. (Read more from Sandeep Dwivedi)

“It’s all heart; the guy doesn’t stop. You know, he just carries on going,” Steyn said. “And whenever his captain throws him the ball, he seems to deliver, and he just runs in nonstop. Bowl these long spells. You know, up to 8 overs, 9-over spells. I’ve seen him do it before. And he seems to deliver every time. And depending on the conditions, he’s able to adapt. In the UK, he was swinging the ball beautifully. And he waited for his turn. I mean, he played in all those Test matches and bowled beautifully, and the wickets came for him in the last Test match. A lot of bowlers can become quite despondent, you know. If things are not going your way, you start searching, but he waited and it came good for him in that game. And the same thing happened in this game. He bowled from the far end, where it wasn’t a lot of up and down movement. It wasn’t going his way. He came back and bowled from this side here, got a little bit of reverse swing, picked up two wickets. So his heart is what stands up for me a lot of the time.”

“Steyn is absolutely right in terms of understanding what lines to bowl and what lengths to bowl on a wicket like this… the sooner you understand that, the easier it is for a bowler,” the legendary legspinner added. “And Bumrah, I’m sure, in that first spell, realised that this is not a wicket where you will get swing, there wasn’t much of that. We expected the ball to swing a lot more early in the day, but that didn’t happen. So he realised that, look, you need to hit the deck and then keep varying the lengths and that’s exactly what he did. He never gave a single opportunity for the batter to go against what Jasprit does, and it was very difficult for the batter to think that they can get a boundary, easy boundary or easy runs, and that’s something that he did; control the game and controlled the pace of the batter as well. And when you do that, when you put that doubt in the batter’s mind, it’s very difficult to go past that with Bumrah.”

“Spell was going well. As I said, it’s the game of the hard ball. When the ball is new, when the seam is pronounced, there’ll be a bit of seam movement. The ball will zip and if the ball goes up or down, there’s a chance. So, we discuss it among ourselves. If my spell is going well, I bowl 1-2 extra overs. When Siraj’s spells are better, he pushes with extra overs. So, we keep changing the combination. It’s cricketing smarts. If you think there’s an opportunity, you can bowl the 1-2 extra overs depending on the situation,” Bumrah said.

South Africa (Playing XI): Aiden Markram, Ryan Rickelton, Wiaan Mulder, Temba Bavuma(c), Tony de Zorzi, Tristan Stubbs, Kyle Verreynne(w), Marco Jansen, Corbin Bosch, Simon Harmer, Keshav Maharaj

India (Playing XI): Yashasvi Jaiswal, KL Rahul, Washington Sundar, Shubman Gill(c), Rishabh Pant(w), Ravindra Jadeja, Dhruv Jurel, Axar Patel, Kuldeep Yadav, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Siraj

Jansen has made a breakthrough here for India. It was dangerous to play the cut shot on this wicket, and Jaiswal ended up chopping the ball onto the stumps. This has been a superb spell from Jansen. He clearly has grown leaps and bounds in recent years, and he with Kagiso Rabada is quite a handful. And as per the batting Washington Sundar has walked into the middle at three for Inda.

South Africa does not have Rabada here today, hence their strike bowler will be Marco Jansen. There have been times in the past when Jansen tends to be too up and down, but of late, he has become really consistent, and there seems to be a maturity that has come upon his game, and he has become quite clever with his variations. It is important that Mulder, who is operating from the other end, continues to keep the pressure that is built from the other end.

South Africa (Playing XI): Aiden Markram, Ryan Rickelton, Wiaan Mulder, Temba Bavuma(c), Tony de Zorzi, Tristan Stubbs, Kyle Verreynne(w), Simon Harmer, Marco Jansen, Corbin Bosch, Keshav Maharaj

India (Playing XI): Yashasvi Jaiswal, KL Rahul, Washington Sundar, Shubman Gill(c), Rishabh Pant(w), Ravindra Jadeja, Dhruv Jurel, Axar Patel, Kuldeep Yadav, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Siraj

Bumrah and Axar are operating at the moment. It will be interesting to see who Stubbs targets here as he has to attack someone. As of now he has been keen on surviving but given the batting quality he has at his disposal it might be time where he considers to take on the bowling and Axar Patel might be a better bet as the way Bumrah is bowling today it might be difficult to attack him.

IND vs SA Test Match-Kolkata

Day 1

Time- 2:00 pm

Spectator Count -35022

We are closing in on Tea here. The morning session might have been a shared one, but this one definitely belonged to India. They have picked up four more wickets and have pushed South Africa further into a deep hole. A lot will depend on Tristan Stubbs to see how many South Africa might manage to get. They might have that conversation at the Tea break, do the South Africans if they want Stubbs to change gears post break. As we update, Axar Patel has picked up Corbin Bosch.

This is turning into one of those days for South Africa that many teams who have travelled to India have seen before. Winning the toss and opting to bat first more often than not, teams hardly end up batting a day. And given how things are going, we might see India batting today by evening. Tristian Stubbs is the recognised batter in the middle for South Africa, and he might switch to T20 gears quickly here.

Having more options means there is a constant juggling of bowlers, and that is what Shubman Gill has been able to do here today. Apart from Bumrah in that morning session, when he bowled seven overs rest of the bowlers have bowled short, sharp bursts and what that does is keep everyone fresh, and on the flip side, bowlers who love bowling long spells find themselves on the other side of the coin.

India has started with their best bowlers from the morning session in Kuldeep Yadav and Jasprit Bumrah. They have looked the most threatening for India, and the remaining bowlers did look a bit off colour. It will be very interesting to see how Gill uses Sundar in this innings or the next innings. He did bowl one before the break with four spin options available at least two of the spinners will be under-bowled, and we might see that happening with Sundar and Jadeja.

South Africa (Playing XI): Aiden Markram, Ryan Rickelton, Wiaan Mulder, Temba Bavuma(c), Tony de Zorzi, Tristan Stubbs, Kyle Verreynne(w), Simon Harmer, Marco Jansen, Corbin Bosch, Keshav Maharaj

India (Playing XI): Yashasvi Jaiswal, KL Rahul, Washington Sundar, Shubman Gill(c), Rishabh Pant(w), Ravindra Jadeja, Dhruv Jurel, Axar Patel, Kuldeep Yadav, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Siraj

India pulled off a surprise move on Friday morning at the Eden Gardens when captain Shubman Gill revealed the possibility of a left-field No.3 for the side against South Africa after Sai Sudharsan was dropped from the XI for the in-form Dhruv Jurel.

With Jurel playing as a specialist bat alongside the return of Rishabh Pant, India also made the move to play all four of their spinners with all-rounder Washington Sundar listed at No. 3 in the team sheet. India spin legend Anil Kumble was left baffled with the team management’s move to fit in a string of all-rounders into the XI, with Ravindra Jadeja and Axar Patel also slotted down the order.(Read more)

Wiaan Mulder has breezed into his innings here. He's batting nicely; he looked comfortable so far, both against spin and pace. He scored his boundaries when they were there for the taking and rotated the strike when singles were on offer. Tony De Zorzi, on the other hand, has been a bit all over the place here. He is finding it tough against Kuldeep Yadav. Although he has played well in Pakistan, the challenge from the Indian spinners is completely different.

Kuldeep Yadav has picked up Temba Bavuma here. It was a soft dismissal, the ball turned into Bavum,a and he ended up giving the catch to leg-slip. That was a pretty smart field placement and planning from Gill. Bavuma has walked right into the trap. Tony De Zorzi has walked into the middle. After starting well South Africa are losing their way a bit here. They have lost three quick wickets with not too many runs added.

We have reached the first water break of the morning, and it has been a bit of a shared passage. South Africa did start well, but eventually, like always, Bumrah has pulled things back. South Africa needs to build a partnership here. Both Mulder and Bavuma are in the middle. It will be interesting to see what role Mulder has at three. Will he be an attacker, or will he play like a normal batter? Very interesting passage this coming up.

Jasprit Bumrah has picked up the first wicket here. It was a cracking delivery from Bumrah. The ball pitched and moved slightly away from the batter, and Rickelton's off-stump got rattled. He looked pretty good, did Rickelton, and it needed a delivery like that to get rid of him. Intresting move here from South Africa Wiaan Mulder has walked into the middle at three. They have been utilising at his number of late quite a bit.

While Aiden Markram has looked in all sorts of trouble this morning, Rickelton has been imperious. His shots have looked good, and he has to make the most of the start he has. India has four spin options. It might be time Shubman Gill thinks of Washington Sundar to counter Rickelton here. He has a plethora of options in this game. An off-spinner in Sundar, a wrist spinner in Kuldeep, and a couple of left-arm spinners in Jadeja and Axar.

Well, Bumrah took the opening over, and one of the balls did keep a tad bit lower than expected and surprised everyone. It is one of those things which happens when the pitch is not settled yet, and we might be seeing the same. It might take the morning session for the moisture to dry out, and South Africa might have it a bit challenging in this first hour or so. We should not be surprised if Shubman Gill turns to his tweakers early in the piece to see if there is any spin available.

"It's 21 degrees and it gets to a maximum of, what, 27 today, so it is very good cricketing conditions to play weather-wise. This pitch looks like it's holding together pretty okay. Generally, they do a little bit of watering the day before the game, sometimes even in the morning of the game, but this pitch, they haven't watered yesterday at all, which basically means if you look at the center of the pitch, there is a lot of dry patches here. So, as this game progresses, there will be a little bit of turn, but not today. Today, what we will see is a bit of reverse swing, and you've got some real good fast bowlers. Both teams have class, you've got Rabada and Bumrah, both those guys, it doesn't really matter about the conditions. Temba Bavuma might be a little bit scared. The last time he captained on this ground, he won the toss, he said, let's bat first and Australia knocked him out in the World Cup semi-final. We've got enough grass cover. it seems hard, so I think there might be movement on day one, but as this game goes on, the surface will change. We feel that it's best to win the toss and then bat first, but most importantly, the fast bowlers will have something in it initially, and a bit of reverse swing as well."

(On losing yet another toss) I think the only toss that I'm going to win is hopefully in the WTC finals. Yeah. Looks like a good surface. Hopefully, we'll get some movement early, hopefully we're able to extract that. Dressing room is pretty amazing. This Test bunch is very hungry and is always determined to perform every time we come out.These two test matches for us are very crucial and we're as hungry as ever. Looks like a good surface. It's going to be a good surface for the first day or a couple of days. And then, hopefully, we'll get some turn as the game goes on. Rishabh comes back in place of Reddy since we last played. And Axar is also back in the side.

Yashasvi Jaiswal, KL Rahul, Washington Sundar, Shubman Gill(c), Rishabh Pant(w), Ravindra Jadeja, Dhruv Jurel, Axar Patel, Kuldeep Yadav, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Siraj

"I cherish a lot of memories here [Eden Gardens]. My IPL career started there and this is one ground whenever I come [to], I definitely feel like how I feel at the PCA stadium [Mohali] in Punjab. It is a similar feeling whenever I come here."

KL Rahul, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Sai Sudharsan, Shubman Gill, Rishabh Pant, Dhruv Jurel, Ravindra Jadeja, Washington Sundar, Kuldeep Yadav, Mohammed Siraj, Jasprit Bumrah