Live Report - South Africa vs India, 1st Test, Centurion
Day 1 - Session 1: South Africa chose to field.
Current RR: 3.56
• Min. Ov. Rem: 64.3
• Last 10 ov (RR): 45/0 (4.50)
17m ago
Who is Nandre Burger?Firdose Moonda reports from Centurion
South Africa tend to find fast bowlers at a rate that evades many other teams and their latest made his debut with much success at SuperSport Park.
Nandre Burger is from Krugersdorp, west of Johannesburg and is not a newbie by any means but has bided his time before being rewarded with national selection. He made his first-class debut in the 2016-17 season for Gauteng, in a team that also included one Devon Conway and came to prominence in the Africa T20 Cup in the 2018-19 season. There, he was the leading bowler with 11 wickets at 10.45.
Burger the took 18 wickets in four first-class matches at 22.38 in the 2019-20 summer and has since moved to the Western Cape. This season, he has played three first-class matches, and has taken 12 wickets at 21.50. These numbers may not shoot the lights out but it points to what South Africa's Test coach Shukri Conrad has called "lateral form lines."
Burger was the leading bowler in the domestic one-day cup (14 wickets at 19.78) and was selected in all three national squads to face India. He showed his pace in the T20I he played, took 3-30 in the second ODI and has now impressed on Test debut too.
40 of India's 60 runs this morning have come in boundaries.
It's a characteristic of cricket in the Highveld. The ball comes onto the bat and the outfield is lightning, so if its there to be hit, you're sure of full value.
The only problem is that advantage is weighted against a grassy pitch that is offering loads of sideways movement and loads and loads of bounce. That's why 95 of the first 120 balls have been dots.
Meanwhile, Temba Bavuma, chasing a Virat Kohli cover drive, has twinged his left hamstring and is walking off the field. He had only just come back from a right hamstring issue. That's really rough for the SA captain.
TWO IN THREE OVERS FOR BURGER NOW AS GILL FALLS TOO!
Caught down the leg side as the right-hander catches up with a short ball that poses zero threat. That's unlucky. The on-field decision was not-out but Temba Bavuma went for the review and South Africa have their third wicket in the first hour.
India have played only 18 false shots to 72 balls this morning - that's meagre - but it's still led to three wickets. It's almost like every mistake they've made has been punished. Shows you that the conditions are definitely in the bowlers' favour.
Shreyas Iyer gets a life as he plays a rash drive on the up and away from the body but Marco Jansen drops him at point in the 13th over, just before the first drinks interval. Do India feel like conditions are too tough just to weather them? Have they decided to go for it before the ball with their number comes up? Surely not? Not in the first hour of a Test match.
South Africa haven't really made the best use of the new ball.
It feels weird to say that because they have India at 23 for 2 in the 10th over.
But hear me out.
India have been able to leave more than half (33) of the first 60 balls. That's largely because 48 of them have been on the shorter side. Those won't be hitting the stumps, even if they were bowled at the stumps.
Yashasvi Jaiswal understood that and was just starting to leave the ball on length. Even when Nandre Burger tightened the line, the bounce on this Centurion pitch ensured the ball sailed over his stumps. So the debutant pushed his length up. Impressive stuff. First the control, because he wasn't offering easy leaves. Then the confidence to pitch it up, draw the drive and not care if it might go for four.
SA might well have been reluctant to explore that length because they didn't want to fall behind in the game too soon; didn't want to give boundary balls on a pitch that is definitely helping them.
Burger though was brave. He went full. He demanded the drive. Jaiswal went for it and he was promptly caught behind. Special stuff from a bowler who looks like he already belongs in international cricket.
The Jaiswal wicket was only the 10th ball that SA pitched up in the first 10 overs
1h ago
Rohit and the pull shotShiva Jayaraman takes the floor again
in India and WI while playing pull and hook shot in the last 3 years 2 dismissals from 60 shots, ave 66.5 and 30 balls per dismissal
in England, Australia and South Africa 6 dismissals from 48 shots, ave 15.67 and 8 Balls per dismissal
There may be a case for Rohit to ration that shot depending on the conditions and its strange that he is so averse to it because he became the batter he is in Test cricket right now by committing to a better defensive game. He reined in all of his natural impulses and learnt to leave the ball, especially outside off, and to be content in avoiding risk, in spending time at the crease, even if the runs weren't flowing, in setting the team and his middle-order up to dictate terms later in the game.
Rohit obviously considers the pull shot a way to score quick runs; a way to transfer pressure. But when he fell, South Africa weren't building a lot of it. They are now.
30.4 The average of the top three batters in South Africa over the last five years. It's among the toughest places to bat when the pitch is fresh and the ball is new
Both Kagiso Rabada and Marco Jansen have been getting appreciable seam movement. There was an lbw shout against Rohit Sharma in the third over where the ball basically behaved like an offbreak, pitching full outside off and jagging so far past the bat that it would in the end have missed the stumps. Wicked. Three slips, a gully and short leg were crowding the batter.
All that said, India have been precise with their decision making. Rohit couldn't care less about balls outside his off stump.
He may as well pull a cigar out every time SA try that line of attack. Completely and utterly uninterested. EXCEPT HE'S GONE NOW.
India lose their captain in the fifth over to a short ball that he pulls to one of only two men on the boundary, at deep fine. Its his strength. He won't put it away. He saw an opportunity to go for it, but Rabada had cramped him a bit, he didn't have full freedom of his hands, so not enough power went into the shot. South Africa were actually wasting the new ball until that point, bowling a touch too short. All of a sudden they've taken out one of India's biggest batting threats. Test cricket. You never ever know what's gonna happen.
It should tell you something about the conditions on offer that the home team has gone in with a four-man pace attack. The spinner's place in the XI has been taken by David Bedingham, who had once given up the idea of playing for South Africa and whose excellence playing in English county cricket had prompted former SA selector Ashwell Prince to go on a bit of a rant about talent drain. Bedingham has been prolific at all the levels he has played at so far as a middle-order batter. He has nearly 6000 first-class runs at an average of 49.5 and a strike rate of 64. Sounds like a guy you want to see back in the pavilion as soon as possible if you're an India fan.
R Ashwin, meanwhile, steps in to play only his 10th away Test match since the start of 2021. India have played 17 of those in that time, including two WTC finals and he wasn't in the XIs for either of those because the conditions weren't right to play two spinners and he falls behind Jadeja because of Jadeja's superior batting ability. Good chance for Ashwin to address that perception here because lower middle order runs will be crucial. South Africa is not a nice place for top-order batters so they may not always be able to put up a bunch of runs; its only when the ball gets softer that batting becomes easier so those at No. 4, 5, 6 and 7 will need to be prepared to put in a shift.
Shiva Jayaraman from our underground stats bunker: Ashwin doesn't have a bad record at Centurion; took 5/410 and 2/132 in '18 and '21 (7 wickets at 35.1); other spinners have taken 24 wickets at 70.0 in the last ten years here
Temba Bavuma justifies the decision by pointing out how the pitch has been under the covers for a very long time - we hear 40 hours to protect it from the rain, but not the sweating that happened thereafter which is the reason for the delayed start. Nandre Burger and David Bedingham will make their debut while Dean Elgar is playing his final Test series.
"Honestly, I was not too sure. So in times like this, it's better to lose the toss," says Rohit Sharma, the India captain. Big news is that Ravindra Jadeja is out with a neck spasm and R Ashwin has taken his place
South Africa: 1 Dean Elgar, 2 Aiden Markram, 3 Tony de Zorzi, 4 Temba Bavuma (capt), 5 Keegan Petersen, 6 David Bedingham, 7 Kyle Verreynne (wk), 8 Marco Jansen, 9 Gerald Coetzee, 10 Kagiso Rabada, 11 Nandre Burger
India: 1 Rohit Sharma (capt), 2 Yashasvi Jaiswal, 3 Shubman Gill, 4 Virat Kohli, 5 Shreyas Iyer, 6 KL Rahul (wk), 7 R Ashwin, 8 Shardul Thakur, 9 Jasprit Bumrah, 10 Prasidh Krishna, 11 Mohammed Siraj
2h ago
We have a start time!And it is less than half an hour away. The toss will come in before that. First ball at 10.30 am SA time/2pm IST.
Prasidh Krishna has earned his first India Test cap. It is a sign that the team management understands they need a tall bowler capable to hitting high on the bat to succeed in these conditions. It is a lesson they learned when they were last here, leading 1-0 but then losing 2-1, because SA had a battery of quicks better equipped to produce false shots.
So now, India are trying to even the odds by bringing in a tall fast bowler, placing faith in his potential to mimic SA's attack over his numbers because Krishna has played only 12 first-class games. And why are they doing that? Because this SA attack has ruled over Centurion. So copying them is essentially the smart thing to do.
2h ago
Fun with Dale SteynWe also did put him to work tho. He didn't mind. Cool guy.
Hey y'all. Merry day after Christmas. Which is basically like a hangover but its cool and everybody approves. We dive back into all the good stuff. The food. The family. The chatter. The drinks. And then we put the cherry on top which is Boxing Day cricket.
The MCG beat us to the punch but we're gonna catch up real quick. India and South Africa provide some of the most compelling cricket ever seen. They've starred in Blockathons. They offer final frontier narratives (this is not the first one, btw.) They pit Kagiso Rabada against Virat Kohli. It's all so good even the rain gods have jumped the queue and joined us. Which isn't great.
The toss which was scheduled to take place at 9.30am SA time (1pm IST) has been delayed by a wet outfield.
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