India Vs South Africa Test Cricket: Cape (Town) Fear Conquered!

India becomes the first Asian cricket team to win a Test at the Newlands Cricket Ground in Cape Town, thus breaking its 7-attempt jinx and conquering a longstanding fear. However, the dream of conquering the Last Frontier in Test Cricket still remains unfulfilled for India with Rohit Sharma being only the second Indian captain to be able to draw a series. In the two-day wonder that unleased in Cape Town yesterday, the second test match between India and South Africa in the 2-match Test Series, India beat the hosts by 7 wickets today just one hour after lunch and had drawn the Series. It was the strongest possible reply to the first test where India was totally outplayed with South Africa registering an innings win. The 6-wicket burst from Jasprit Bumrah cut short South Africa’s fightback as they began the day at 62/3 and restricted them to 176 all out, giving India a target of only 79 runs to win. You must have wondered at the start of the Series what Yashasvi Jaiswal was doing in the team as an opener, because he has emerged only as a specialist short-format batsman and to replace a performing regular opener (Gill) was something you, like this writer, must have found indigestible, that too after the endless quest for an opener from the likes of KL Rahul onward, and also the perplexing indecision regarding selecting Surya Kumar Yadav for the World Cup-2023 ODI team even though that lay very much within the short format. Perhaps the selectors wanted to try a left-hander which had become rare commodity in Team India’s top half of late. But anyway, the selectors got vindicated to ecstasy! On a treacherous wicket even the 79-run target looked ominous and a player like Jaiswal was just the need of the hour: a brave hitter who could entirely damage the opposition with his initial burst. And that was exactly what he did today after lunch—he made 28 in only 23 balls and did permanent damage to the hosts’ expectations with Rohit steadying the other end till the end.

In the first innings as South Africa won the toss electing to bat first the 6-wicket burst from Mohammed Siraj did them in for a paltry 55 runs in their own land, in their own ground, looking shell-shocked as to how a pitch, prepared and curated by their own people, could be so unpredictably brutal to they themselves, and this created a curious situation, very similar to that Ahmedabad pitch which proved to be an equally unpredictable nightmare for the top-form local boys. Or maybe in both cases.

Facing an incredible opportunity to try take a massive lead and conquer the Fear by forcing a big win India started well with good contributions from Rohit, Gill and Virat. And then the match delivered the second shocker which in fact became a world record: from a position of 153/4 India collapsed to 153 all out, that is to say, they lost the last six wickets for zero addition to the total, including the likes of KL Rahul and Jadeja. The match was back to square on, although all happening during the first day itself. South Africa added three more wickets to the day’s tally, and this created the third wonder of the match which too almost became a world record: 23 wickets fell in a single day and this ‘achievement’ is only next to that of 25 wickets that fell in a match more than a century ago, 1902, to be exact.

As for the fourth wonder of the match, Aiden Markram has become the first batsman to score an incredible century (106 in 103 balls) in the second innings while all other batsmen failed to reach a score of even 20 odd runs in either innings of the match. The final wonder of the match: this becomes the shortest test in cricket history by the number of balls delivered with just 107 overs bowled and lasting for one and half day.

This memorable test match is good for Test Cricket in yielding exciting results, even though ideally a test should last at least three days, like in Australia mostly. The match is also particularly good for the Indian captain Rohit Sharma who had had to undergo excruciating pain in that pitch-marish World Cup-2023 Final at home, and again after the devastating defeat in the first test match against South Africa. It is also to be noted that he has got the result without the services of Shami and Pandya, and Test specialists like Pujara, Rahane and all, or maybe the latter are no longer required. Pandya, already made captain of Mumbai Indians replacing the India captain, could possibly be fit only during the IPL. Well! For the IPL, every bought player have to be fit at any cost!