India vs South Africa Highlights, 2nd Test Day 2: IND beat SA by 7 wickets to level the series 1-1 in Cape Town

I would have liked to do more in this game. Still very proud of my performance I had in Centurion. Nice to contribute to a winning cause. Some really tough conditions throughout. It (3-Test series) would have been fantastic. You want to challenge yourself, Bumrah is world-class, he deserves this award. You want to push yourself to limits. Glad that I don;t have to face these guys again. Fond memories. We've come a long way. Very grateful to play against these guys.

It's my best figures in Test career. I tried to be consistent and hit the right areas. I wasn't consistent in the previous match and that's why we leaked a lot of runs. Worked hard on consistency and tried to be relentless with my lengths. When we play together, he (Bumrah) gets the message earlier. We try to analyse the wicket quicker. (Message to the fans) Thank you so much, keep supporting.

A tough one for us. Pretty positive coming into this game. India bowled fantastically and used the conditions. Still a lot of positives for the young players that we have within the side. 2-0 would have been really nice, still managed 1-1, proud of the boys. The way the bowlers bowled in the series and the way Aiden batted in the second innings is something out of the world.

Well, that's it. The game is done and dusted. While the Indian fans would be happy, South African fans would feel bittersweet about the result. The series has raised more significant questions about the overall game and where the Test matches go from here on. As a spectacle, it was entertaining while it lasted, but where does it stand in the grand scheme of things? Only time will tell. But as an old-school fanatic, if you love narratives built through the series, for instance, the Broad vs Warner clash during the Ashes, there is little to get your grips on from these tours. If India wasn't part of the series, how much traction this sort of two-match series gets is a massive question. With the series comes the end of  Dean Elgar's career, what you might think to be the end of an era of a generation of Test cricketers and cricket

Virat Kohli departs with four runs needed to win. Shreyas Iyer has walked into the middle. Though South Africa will be happy that they have managed to pick a few wickets, this game was going only in one direction after that initial onslaught from Jaiswal. Iyer has walked into the middle. He needs to stay in the middle to see India win and not lose his wicket. Throughout the series, questions have been about his ability to play short ball and whether he will get out now. Those will only add to further questions about his position in the team, especially in overseas tests. 

Virat Kohli has walked into the middle. With 20 runs to get him and Rohit, they will be looking to stay till the end and win the test match. The first one went for three days and this one for two days. So the entire series went for a length of one Test. Whether it is the problem of pitches or the issue of batting techniques, something needs to be sorted, and if South Africa continues to play on surfaces like there is no way their batters or their batting averages are improving. Also, this game has not seen an over of spin. Both spinners though were added to the line-ups they had absolutely nothing to do. 

Shubman Gill played a lovely straight drive to get his innings underway. India needs less than 30 runs here. In terms of WTC, there is not a lot of damage being done to India because now they have a stretch of home games where they can get a few points until they go to Australia next year this time. A five-match series against England followed by a two-match series against Bangladesh and New Zealand. As we update Shubman Gill departs for a low score yet again. The ball kept a touch low as Gill could not get his bat down on time his stumps were cleaned. 

Though India has not lost the series there are still severe questions for batting—especially Shubman Gill at number three. In the first innings,, he had an opportunity to make the Test match his own. However, he got a start and threw it away. There is a five-match series for India coming up at home against England and provided the wickets might be good; Gill might look to improve his stats significantly. As of now, they are looking pretty ordinary. As we update, Jaiswal, trying to be aggressive, perished. He pulls one straight to the fine leg of Nandre Burger's short one. 

Well,, Jaiswal has taken the T20 route. Seems like he is batting in the Powerplay. He is moving across the crease and looking to clear the in-field, get the boundaries, and exhaust that target. This has been a good performance by India throughout the Test match. Apart from that spell where they lost six wickets for nothing, most things went according to the plan for Rohit and his side. Well, one who is very critical may argue that while Markram was batting, things looked a bit iffy; however, that is part and parcel of playing Test matches away from home, where you will be tested during Test matches. 

Rohit Sharma and Yashasvi Jaiswal have started with purpose here. Looks like they are going to score these runs quickly. Rabada has taken the new ball, and Nandre Burger is coming from the other end. The bowlers don't need to worry about the ends now because both sides of the pitch misbehave. The ball is just bouncing sharply off the surface. But to defend this total, South Africa needs to get an over one, which Ngidi bowled in that first innings where he picked three wickets and turned the game on its head. 

We are back, and we will know the result of the game in this session. It is a small score to chase. However, a couple of early wickets might put India in trouble. Also, India does not bat deep. That will always be on their mind. Especially after what happened last evening? Rohit will be looking to take the bowl on. It will be an exciting session, folks; stay with us. 

That's that Bumrah picks the final wicket, and India needs 79 runs to level the series. It is pretty doable. However, on this pitch, one brings two and two brings three. That is what India needs to be careful of. They need to be aggressive, but they cant be reckless. If they do, we have seen what might happen in South African battings. The set batter needs to put a lot more price on his wicket than in any other place. We have seen what happened after KL played that rash short in the first innings. India would be hoping this chase would go as smoothly as possible. And South Africa will be looking to pick a couple of early wickets.

Nandre Burger survives Krishna's delivery and South African batting survives another over. Burger seems to have a solid defense and looks like he can handle himself if there is a batter at the other end. On the other hand, the last thing India wants is for this partnership to to build another 20-30 runs, which would take South Africa's lead closer to that 100 mark. It might be a good ploy from Rohit to bring in Bumrah from Prasidh's end and let him unveil his lethal yorkers and bouncers. Irrespective of the end which he bowls, given the quality of the batters, he will still back himself to pick a wicket. 

There is another one. Markram fell first, and picking another one did not take long. Rabada tried to hit Prasidh over mid-off fielder but was caught. India will be relieved now how things have gone in the last 15 minutes or so. What a see-saw battle this game has turned into. India hopes to finish the South African batting quickly, chase these runs by the tea break today, and level the series. As per South Africa, they will be happy with any runs this partnership can get from here. But it is a massive ask for these batters to face music from Siraj and others on this surface.

Rohit Sharma is looking a bit out of his depth now in the last 15-20 minutes, and so are the Indian bowlers. Markram is running away with the game here. They are getting that partnership needed. With one more collaboration like this, South Africa will genuinely believe they can win this game. Mohammed Siraj has replaced Jasprit Bumrah and Siraj would be hoping to pick Markram as well. There is still plenty to work with from Wynberg's end. For some reason, India has decided they will only attack Rabada and let Markram survive. Misfields, too, have started to creep in all of a sudden. As we update, Siraj picked up Markram.

Aiden Markram's innings is now one of the best innings the batter has ever played. As soon as Rabada walked in, it seemed like he had decided to take on the bowling, and the momentum had now swung in favor of South Africa for the last 15 minutes. Prasidh was brought into the attack, and Markram gave him a bit of pasting in that first over. KL Rahul will be kicking himself for an error in his batting that caused India's collapse, and the mistake in keeping is stretching this lead for South Africa. If they can make India chase around the 100-120 mark, we might have a game on our hands. 

We have reached the first water break of the day, and it has been India's session so far. Some poor batting from South Africa did not help themselves either. Well, KL Rahul dropped Aiden Markram, as we updated. The South African opener has been trying to score some quick runs here, and in his attempt to attack Bumrah, he tried to cut a ball and got the outside edge, which carried to Rahul. He dropped it, and the rebound fell underneath him, making it impossible for a first slip to take the catch. Markram's inning is now looking threatening for the Indians. 

Every update we have been giving Bumrah picks a wicket, and yes, it happened again. This time, Keshav Maharaj tried to play a rash shot outside the off-stump, and the edge carried to the gully fielder. It has been an abysmal batting display from South African batters as much as Bumrah's brilliance. It feels like one of those test passages where teams lose their heads, similar to one that happened to Australia earlier this year in Delhi, where they, for some reason, decided that they were going to sweep every delivery. While all this is happening from one end, Markram is still batting. 

Well, there we go. Bumrah gets another one. This time, it is his brilliant reflexes that do the trick. Jansen tried to drive the ball straight, and Bumrah took a stunning catch on his followthrough. Jansen looked surprised as he walked back to the pavilion. Bumrah has got his fourth wicket of the morning. The way he is bowling now, it feels like he will pick one every over. Like Siraj yesterday, it will be hard for Rohit to take the ball out of Bumrah's hand in this spell. Meanwhile, Maharaj has walked in, and India is into the tail of South African batting. 

Aiden Markram scores a sublime 50 and becomes the first player in the game to pass a landmark. He played some sublime shots through off-sides and showed his class. Yes, he has been aggressive, but it has never got overboard. He always balanced playing his shots and leaving the balls well. If someone can hang around with him from the South African point of view and they take their lead to around that 100-120 mark, It might get tricky for India as the surface now has started to misbehave from both ends, and a couple of quick wickets will put the visitors under a lot of pressure. 

On the other hand, despite the wickets falling from the other end, Aiden Markram is holding his end up. South Africa needs a couple of good partnerships, and India will feel the pressure. Indian batting, too, has been horrendous in the series. As we update Jasprit Bumrah picks Verreyenne. The batter tried to play the short arm jab and was beaten by the bounce, and the ball looped high in the air for mid-on Siraj to take a simple catch. That is the third wicket for Bumrah in this innings. He is looking in good rhythm. He just may run through the batting lineup here.  

We had a slight delay as Mukesh had a problem with his landing foot; hence, the hammer was called upon, and some treatment was given in that area of the pitch. It is all sorted as Kumar finishes his overs, and he almost picks Verryene. What is working for Indian bowlers in this inning is that though Bumrah and Siraj will probably operate from the end where the pitch is misbehaving, Mukesh is giving away nothing from the other end. Though there is not much on offer from his end, there is still enough for him to work with as he is accurate

Well, there we go. It did not take too long. Beddingham, who tried to be positive, went a bit overboard with it as he tried to drive a delivery from Bumrah on the up through covers, and the ball took the outside edge to the keeper, KL Rahul—poor shot selection. One must say it is a wicket differently to be aggressive; however, it was too early in the day's play for such shots. This is what India would have been hoping in the morning to do, and for South Africa, it is a nightmare start. The hosts are still 36 runs behind in the game, and with every falling wicket, it looks gloomy for them.

Here we are, minutes away from action. Expect another brilliant day of cricket. It is a bright and excellent day for cricket. Let's hope batters show some fight, unlike yesterday, and somehow, this game gets dragged onto day three. 

At 153/4, India looked in a promising position on Day 1 of the Cape Town Test. The bowlers had bundled out South Africa for 55 and with a near hundred run lead, the visitors had Virat Kohli (46) in the middle alongside last game’s centurion, KL Rahul.

Which is when the lightning struck. Six wickets off 11 deliveries with not a single run added on the board. For the first time in a single Test innings, a team had lost as many wickets without scoring any run.

With Kohli in ears of the bowlers and also the captain – he could be seen gesticulating to Rohit to have a short leg for Elgar earlier, more good things were around the corner for Siraj. With Kohli urging him to hit the off-stump line to Marco Jansen, Siraj reproduced the request to see Jansen perish behind to bag his five-for, his third such accomplishment. And in his ninth over, he had the wicketkeeper Kyle Verreynne edge a drive to end up with his best Test figures 6 for 15 and South Africa hurried to their end.

In his second spell, Siraj would ensure neither Krishna nor Mukesh had to do any heavy lifting. The David Bedingham delivery wouldn’t be easily forgotten by the bowler nor that batsman. It was a kicker from just back of length, and it flew off the splice of the bat to the slip cordon, which was pretty good with Yashasvi Jaiswal lunging either way to pouch catches.

Then came a series of Siraj deliveries on that leg and middle line, and Elgar would do his hop-and-stab or stand-and-tuck. Siraj then threw the bait, a length delivery outside off. In his mind’s eyes, Elgar must have seen acres of empty spaces on the off-side and jumped at it like a real-estate agent. But it wasn’t just temptation but deception too that Siraj had thrown in: this ball straightened a touch and suddenly Elgar was cramped for room. He tried to stab it out, but after being so intent on his pads for a long while, the off-side game wasn’t quite there yet. And unsurprisingly, he dragged it on to his stumps.

Elgar’s father Richard tells a sign that he looks for that tells him how he knows his son is going to have a good batting day. If the leg-side tuck through square-leg comes early in the knock, he is happy.

“It’s a bit strange but somehow that tells me he is focused, his balance is fine, and he is going to be okay,” Richard had told this newspaper. The opportunity came in the fourth ball he faced, the first from Bumrah. But Elgar’s attempted nudge turned into a shovel and the ball ballooned just over midwicket. Was that a sign of what was to come?

That open-chested predator Siraj had a leg-slip, a deepish short-leg very square (Rohit Sharma had stationed himself there, an oddity from a captain) and kept peppering Elgar on the middle and leg line, testing his balance.

Jasprit Bumrah, who had generally kept angling it away from left-handers at Centurion, bowled a series of inward-curlers, even bending in the yorkers at Elgar and Zorzi. The legslip was omnipresent, there didn’t seem anything untenanted on that side. The off-side though was almost barren.

It had the remnants of India’s 2021 triumph in Australia but with an attacking twist: attack the leg-side game of the two most successful left-handers in the previous Test, and keep it simple to the right-handers. Against Australia, it was initially to test out the batsmen’s strengths and patience (like Steve Smith and Marnus Labuschagne’s), keeping them tied with a packed on-side field. Here, they gunned for the left-handers Dean Elgar and Tony de Zorzi with a more attacking approach to pursue a dismissal.

“Remember how we batted against Australia and England,” Rohit Sharma would remind in the immediate aftermath of the bruising at Centurion. He didn’t place the bowling in that memory frame then - they too had leaked over 400 runs on a bowler-friendly surface - but they certainly reminded everyone, least of all the South African batsmen, what venom they are capable of. In particular, their top 2 - Mohammad Siraj and Jasprit Bumrah, who pitched in new-ball spells that would stay in the mind for long as they wiped out South Africa for 55 in the first innings.

Shubman Gill, whose weight transfer has been an issue in Test cricket, was trying to press back but couldn’t do it in time. He was stuck there in an internet-loss buffering video, but the ball had rammed into his bat splice and swallowed by waiting palms.

Shreyas Iyer had already stationed himself behind the crease, close to the stumps – that isn’t the ideal back-foot play of say someone like Michael Slater who would actively go back and across, creating his own length and time to play balls. Here Iyer had nowhere to go, and he hung his bat out.

There was a sequence of shots in the 27th over of the innings against Rabada that captured the essence of his knock. He pounced on a slightly short ball to unfurl a glorious one-legged pull, a shot that he doesn’t play too often. He usually swat-pulls with his bottom-handed wrist taking over but this was as conventional a pull he has unfurled. A couple of balls later, he creamed a gorgeous cover drive right out of the trademark Kohli gif and soon strode forward for an immaculate defense that brought Dravid to mind.

Two Indian batsmen saved the day, Rohit Sharma and Kohli. Rohit primarily because the bowling at that point, barring Rabada, was erratic but he had the sense of mind and purpose to cash in.

The best innings belonged to Kohli who these days blends aggression without boiling over in intensity as he could do. He was relatively relaxed, smiling with Elgar, mimicking a run of a South African on the field, chatting with the umpires. He would cuss himself a couple of times, at scoring opportunities lost as he realised its importance on such a pitch.

There was one telling statistic that told the story of the two batting units. Despite numerous shouts and DRS reviews, there was no lbw dismissal in the 23 wickets that fell. It spoke about the bounce on the pitch – the main devil, really – but it also showed how the techniques have withered away. And perhaps some cricketing intelligence as well.

Those numbers tell that batsmen could have been leaving the balls on a length, not easy but not improbable but made to seem impossible by the relentless plonking on the front foot without a second plan. There was some irony in their unceasing surprise at the extra bounce that kept ramming into their bat splice.

The day, however, was perfect to rant about the falling standards of Test batting. First, there was Pakistan’s shenanigans on a flat track pre-dawn in Australia before a tailender rescued them. This was followed by South Africa’s implosion in the afternoon before India sealed it by spontaneously combusting in the evening

What’s the best thing to have happened to India on a day when they lost 6 wickets for zero runs? That South Africa batted worse in their first innings to be shot out for 55 and had yielded a 98-run lead on a dramatic day’s play that could prove the difference in the end. South Africa continued their woeful ways in the second, losing three wickets and trailing by 36 runs. The pessimists would identify this run-difference to India’s total from that Pink ball Test during the 2020 Australia tour, but surely India can’t implode again?

25 - AUS vs ENG, Melbourne, 1902
23 - SA vs IND, Cape Town, 2024
22 - ENG vs AUS, The Oval, 1890
22 - AUS vs WI, Adelaide, 1951
21 - SA vs ENG, Gqeberha, 1896

27 - ENG vs AUS, Lord’s, 1888 (Day 2)
25 - AUS vs ENG, Melbourne, 1902 (Day 1)
24 - ENG vs AUS, The Oval, 1896 (Day 2)
24 - IND vs AFG, Bengaluru, 2018 (Day 2)
23 - SA vs AUS, Cape Town, 2011 (Day 2)
23 - SA vs IND, Cape Town, 2024 (Day 1)

We've got quite a few days to prepare for this one. This is a new year, new day for us and we are going to come back and make a statement in this Test match. It's very important to be there mentally, you have to let your focus and determination and let your grit take over. It's not so much about the technique, it's more so about the grit and determination. This is a great opportunity for us to level the series and all of us are very well prepared and very well equipped to be able to win this Test match. It's a beautiful ground, lovely to be here, surrounded by the mountains on one side. We are really looking forward for this Test match.

Dean Elgar(c), Aiden Markram, Tony de Zorzi, Tristan Stubbs, David Bedingham, Kyle Verreynne(w), Marco Jansen, Keshav Maharaj, Kagiso Rabada, Nandre Burger, Lungi Ngidi

Rohit Sharma(c), Yashasvi Jaiswal, Shubman Gill, Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, KL Rahul(w), Ravindra Jadeja, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Siraj, Prasidh Krishna, Mukesh Kumar

Hello, and welcome to our live blog for the second day of the second Test. We had a bittersweet first day. Bittersweet, we say, as the action has been riveting; however, how good are pitches like these for the health of Test cricket is the eternal question. The way things have gone yesterday, today might be the final day of the game. Regardless of the quality of the game, we still had an entertaining Test so far, and it will be the same today, too. Please stay with us to catch all the live action.