Fast bowlers Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammed Shami shared six wickets between them to hand India their first-ever victory at the SuperSport Park in Centurion against South Africa in Test match cricket, thus enabling India to become the first team from Asia to do so. India won the first Test by a huge margin of 113 runs and took a vital 1-0 lead in the three-match series for the Freedom Trophy 2021.
South Africa had resumed the play on the final day placed at a dangerous position of 94/4 and after losing their captain Dean Elgar and wicket-keeper batsman Quinton de Kock in the first session, the chances became slimmer for the home team to force a draw with the help of bad weather which was expected for the later part of the day.
India, however, did not wait for the bad weather to play any kind of spoilsport in their plans as they bowled South Africa out for 191, recording a big victory in Centurion to become the first team from Asia to do so. This was India’s third Test match at this venue where they had lost both the previous contests in 2010 and 2018.
Bumrah returned with figures of 19-4-50-3 whereas Shami took 17-3-63-3 to top the bowling charts for India, which also included a couple of wickets for Mohammed Siraj and spinner Ravichandran Ashwin. For South Africa, their captain Elgar waged a lone battle as he made 77 from 156 balls with the help of 12 boundaries, but he could not find any strong support from the other batsmen.
De Kock, who announced after the conclusion of the game that he was retiring from the longest format of cricket, chopped one onto his wickets for 21 from 28 balls of Shami whereas South Africa vice-captain Temba Bavuma remained unbeaten on 35 from 80 balls, having scored a fine half-century in the first innings.
While Shami took a total of 8 wickets in the match which was similar to South Africa’s Lungi Ngidi, India’s vice-captain for this Test series, KL Rahul was named the man of the match for his brilliant 123 in the first innings which made the difference in terms of runs.
Both the teams will now get a few days off before they meet again in the second Test to be played from January 3, 2022, at Johannesburg.