All fears about Indian batting in South Africa found to be true, when Styne and Morkel destroyed Indian batting picking 3 and 4 wickets consecutively during the rain affected first day of first test at Centurion.
Start of the match was delayed due to rain. When play started Indians found themselves in deep trouble right from the beginning. Firstly, Dhoni lost yet another toss and South Africa put them into bat.
World best bowling attack bowled at perfect line and length giving nothing right away from the beginning. Smith’s captaincy experience payed off, he put a 3rd man in the catching position for Sehwag and Sehwag was found guilty of playing uppish drive straight down to his throat in very 3rd over of the innings and Amla, the fielder, didn’t make any mistake.
After that Indian wickets started falling like leaves in autumn. Soon after Ghambir and Dravid also lost their wickets and left India on 27-3. “Little Master” Sachin Tendulkar and VVS Laxman tried to bring some stability before Steyn cleaned Laxman with a nice delivery, Raina didn’t last long facing only 3 balls before been dismissed by Kallis. Tendular showed his brilliance with the bat but wasn’t able to capitalize on the start losing his wicket after scoring 36 runs.
At that time India were 29 short of 100, stunned at 71-6. batting sensation Harbhajan Singh joined Captain Dhoni, shared a crucial stand of 39. Bhajji was a victim of Boucher’s brilliance who underarmed a throw between his legs into the wicket and Harbhajan was found short of his crease.
So, India’s misery continued. ‘Batting leach’ Ishant Sharma didn’t stick with the wicket for too long and Sreesanth also went soon after both for ducks.
Debutant Jaidev Unadkat joined Dhoni when India was struggling at 116-9. He supported his captain before light interrupted play again. Their partnership has already yielded 20 runs.
So, at stumps India scored 136 for losing 9 wickets and rain shortened 1st day play to only 38.1 overs.
Player Of The Day: Without any doubt it was Morne Morkel who ran through Indian top order picking up 4 important wickets at an impressive economy rate of 1.64 in 12 overs.
Flop Of The Day: Virender Sehwag, so much was expected from him but he threw his wicket away in 3rd over.
Moment Of The Day: Boucher’s brilliant acrobatic stuff who ran out dismissed Harbhajan when his was playing his shots and yielding important runs.
ALi Karimi
salman1508
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