Yashasvi Jaiswal refuses to learn from his mistakes, gets out playing the cut shot again

His side was reeling, in the doldrums. Down 0-1, behind in 11 of the 12 sessions up till then, and staring at an unprecedented target. His first attempt to break free is an audacious upper-cut against a steep climber when one hoped India had just kitted out to prevent a second almighty embarrassment between two afternoons at the ACA Stadium.

Never before has a team piled as mighty a target as South Africa did — 549 — for the beleaguered hosts in their backyard in their maiden Test in Guwahati, a spectacle that progressively crushed Rishabh Pant’s men for a fourth day in succession.

The Jansen-Jaiswal rivalry is still too brief but telling – 29 runs in 57 deliveries for three dismissals — before the straight shoot-out began in India’s painful churn between life and death on day 4. The twin dismissals in Kolkata had prompted the left-hander to sweat out heavily against the team’s left-arm throwdown specialist, two days out from the second outing here, followed by lengthy chats with head coach Gautam Gambhir.

The duel also directed to the mounting cases of dwindling game awareness where Jaiswal faced 19 consecutive deliveries of Jansen from the outset in the dizzying corridor of arrogance, leaving KL Rahul, a better antidote to pace, watching on.

The fifth delivery of the opening over devilishly kicked up with the angle, freezing Jaiswal, the streaky outside-edge marginally dying on Aiden Markram at second slip. The plans to foil him weren’t a secret anymore. A clipped boundary down leg would put Jaiswal back up. An upper-cut six was successful in Jansen’s third over and Jaiswal could not process anything but offense.

For once the lifter from good length did not carry the same venom outside-off, but still managed to corrupt his restraints again. He went scything, hard and awry, the outside-edge to the keeper. The distending numbers continue to swell — a seventh dismissal to his beloved cut shot, a ninth dismissal to left-arm pace and a third in four innings to Jansen.

It was almost the word in waiting for South Africa, who immediately summoned Simon Harmer from the southern end from where he nearly nipped Rahul with his first ball in the previous outing. In a terrible over-correction to his lazy first-innings prod, Rahul’s exaggerated forward press was breached by Harmer’s pearler. Deceived by flight and betrayed by the memory of the Keshav Maharaj dismissal, Rahul’s defences opened up and his angled bat attempted a shocking tuck towards mid-wicket. Angled 60 degrees towards fine leg, Harmer’s irrepressible over-spin flattened the seam as the ball hit the toffee patch outside off and veered towards the leg stump.

The send their most solid bat from the first-innings shambles out to stave off further blows. The latest inductee to the Indian top order, No.4 Kuldeep Yadav played out 22 more deliveries as India disappeared for the night, with 522 runs and the margin of eight wickets hanging over the head.

Resuming with an overnight lead of 314, the Proteas valued time and stone-cold disintegration, psyching out India with an overbearing sense of resignation. They batted 71 overs over on a Day 4 strip that only felt placid when they reigned over it. The two-part Tristan Stubbs innings — 62 off 161 before his first smite in the V, and 32 runs off his next 19 deliveries thereafter — completed India’s diabolical bowling chapter.

South Africa’s players celebrate the dismissal of India’s Yashasvi Jaiswal, centre, on the fourth day of the second cricket test match between India and South Africa in Guwahati, India, Saturday, Nov. 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Anupam Nath)

Ravindra Jadeja, India’s senior-most star, had resigned to the prospect of a valiant draw, batting six hours on Wednesday, becoming a “win-win”.

The world champions had dominated with nifty deductions, firmly believing the fatigue of another four hours and 45 minutes on the field would jade the Indians.

“We looked at how best we were going to use the new ball, so that in the morning we still have a new-ish, hard-ish ball. We also felt when the shadows come across the wicket in the evening, there’s something in it for the quicks. We didn’t want to declare too early and not be able to use that,” South Africa head coach Shukri Conrad told reporters at stumps before laying bare the ultimate gauntlet for India at home this decade.

“We wanted them to really grovel, to steal a phrase.”

“We wanted to bat them completely out of the game and say to them, well come and survive on the last day and hour this evening.”