South Africa win battle of pace attacks, demolish India by 72 runs
Cape Town, Jan 8 (IBNS): In a battle of pace attacks in the first Test match, South Africa registered a comprehensive victory against India by 72 runs in Cape Town on Monday.
While the Indian pace bowling dominated the South Africans in the first session of the fourth day, the hosts came hard upon the visitors to take a 1-0 lead in the Test series.
South Africa started the fourth day's play from a strong position of overnight score of 63/2 but soon collapsed to just 130 runs. The Indian pace unit ruptured the South African middle order to put themselves in an advantageous position.
AB de Viliiers, who scored 35 (50), was the only batsman who had resisted the Indian bowling.
Mohammed Shami and Jasprit Bumrah picked up 3 wickets each in the second innings.
Chasing a target of 208, India kept on losing wickets at regular intervals to get bowled out at just 135, falling short of 72 runs.
Though Indian captain Virat Kohli got a start but became a victim to Philander while he was going strong at 28. His dismissal was followed by a total breakdown of the Indian batting order.
After losing 7 wickets, a small partnership of 49 runs between Ravichandran Ashwin and Bhuvneshwar Kumar was making the match interesting but Ashwin's dismissal took the game completely away from the visitors.
Ashwin went out at 37 runs. Bhuvneshwar Kumar remained not out at 13 runs.
Vernon Philander, who was the most successful bowler for South Africa, clinched 6 wickets for 42 runs in the second innings. Morne Morkel and Kagiso Rabada shared 2 wickets each.
In the first innings, India scored 209 in reply to South Africa's 286 runs.
Post match Kohli said: "Credit goes to the South African bowlers but we need to rectify mistakes."
"Someone needed to score a 70s but few 30s will not be good enough to tackle such a (good) bowling line up (South African bowling)" the Indian captain added.
South Africa lead the three-match Test series 1-0.
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