The South African cricket team has won the first test match of the 2-match series which they played against India at SuperSport Park Cricket Stadium, Centurion. They won the match by an innings and 32 runs with more than 2 days of the game still remaining.
The Indian side never looked in the contest as first, they failed in scoring a big total on the scoreboard in their first innings and then they were not able to control the Proteas batters and stop them from putting up a good total. India’s performance in the second innings was more disappointing than the first innings and the only good thing that happened in this test match is the magnificent century scored by KL Rahul in the first innings.
The Indian team was asked to bat first by the hosts after winning the toss and the Indian batters failed to put up a good fight against the lethal bowling attack of South Africa. The Indian cricketers could manage only 245 runs in their first innings and the hero of this innings for India was KL Rahul who played mature and sensible innings of 101 runs which included 14 fours and 4 sixes. KL Rahul came to bat at number 6; he stitched important partnerships with the tailenders and proved why he is important for the team.
This century by KL Rahul has been hailed as one of the top ten centuries by Indians in the test history by the former Indian cricketer Sunil Gavaskar. The Little Master is a part of the commentary panel and during the commentary, he says that he has been watching cricket for the last 50 years and this century by KL Rahul is certainly in the top ten in the test history of Indian cricket because on this type of pitch, a player will never have the confidence that he is well-set. He further says that on this pitch, the ball can do anything anytime and despite that, KL Rahul scored a century which is a great thing.
KL Rahul who is playing as a wicketkeeper-batter for the first time in the longest format of the game was told about Sunil Gavaskar’s statement during the press conference and as he heard it, an exclamatory “wow” came out from him.
After the journalist stopped speaking, KL Rahul that he is humbled as Sunil Gavaskar made that comment and it is a huge compliment for him. Talking further about his innings, KL Rahul said that while batting in the middle order, a batter can’t plan his innings much because he has to play as per the situation, thinking what he needs to do in that moment. KL Rahul also said that he wanted to score as many runs as possible for the team and he is pretty happy with his performance.
South Africa put up a dominant show as they scored 408 runs in their first innings with the help of Dean Elgar’s knock of 185 runs. Marco Jansen also played a superb knock of 84 runs and David Bedingham played a useful knock of 56 runs as well.
India’s performance in the second innings was worse than the first innings as the whole team got out for 131 runs which was 32 runs short of the lead taken by the Proteas. Virat Kohli fought a lone battle as he scored 76 runs but it was not enough for India to survive in this test match.
India has never won a test series in South Africa and this time also, they have missed the chance to do that, hopefully they will win the second test match to level the series at least otherwise they will lose the test series.