Rahul leads India's fightback on a rain curtailed 1st day of Ind v SA test

 

Kagiso Rabada's high class bowling  tormented India's batting.  Lokesh Rahul fought hard .  His half-century ended the day at 208 for 8 for India .  The first day's play ended earlier due to rain.

 Only 59 overs were played on the first day due to rain.  India lost 8 wickets in between.  Apart from Lokesh Rahul, none of India's batsmen could score big runs.  As a result, India is under pressure on the first day of the first Test against South Africa at Centurion.  At the end of the game, India were 208 for 8.  Kagiso Rabada took 5 wickets out of these 8 wickets.  Without Rahul, India would have been more ashamed.

 South African captain Temba Bavuma won the toss and decided to bowl first.  India's two openers Rohit Sharma and Yashaswi Jaiswal were struggling from the start.  Kagiso Rabada and Marco Jansen were swinging the ball.  They were getting extra advantage from the pitch due to rain before the start of the game.  Rohit was out after 5 runs as he couldn't handle the temptation to pull the ball from Rabada.

Yashaswi played a few good shots and looked promising .  He was however having trouble especially in front of left-hander Andre Berger.   Yashaswi got out after 17 runs.  Shubman Gill, who scored a hundred in the warm-up match, did not stay long.  He gloved Berger's ball outside the leg stump and returned it with a catch in the hands of the wicketkeeper.  Shubman scored 2 runs.  Berger caught attention on his debut.

 India lost 3 wickets for just 24 runs.  Virat and Shreyas took over the game from there.  At the beginning of the innings, however, both of them were dropped .  The Indian pair took advantage of it.  The South African bowlers were aiming too much at leg stump and leg in the hope of swing.  Both of them used it to score some runs .  After a few strokes, the pressure eased a bit.  Virat and Shreyas were not taking unnecessary risks.  But they were hitting the ball.  India finally scored 91 for 3 in 26 overs before the lunch break.

Rabada changed the game after the break.  He gave India a big shock by first dismissing Shreyas and then Virat.  Shreyas scored 31 runs and was bowled by a ball that kept very low .  38 runs came from Virat's bat and then he was caught behind off a good leg cutter from Rabada .   Ravichandran Ashwin also returned with 8 runs getting an unplayable delivery that he edged to slip .

 After the loss of 6 wickets, the responsibility of handling India's innings fell on Rahul and Shardul Thakur.  Rahul was batting fluently.  He was hitting the ball well and  was leaving the ball superbly and skillfully.   Shardul was also batting positively.  He took the pressure off Rahul by hitting several fours.  In between, the ball hit him once in the helmet and once in his hand.  As a result, he  lost momentum .  He had to pay for it.  He became Rabada's fifth victim by scoring 24 runs.

 After the tea break, Rahul tried to stay with  Bumrah.  With less wickets in hand, he is seen playing a little aggressively.  He made his half-century by hitting Berger for two consecutive fours and sixes.  Bumrah also got out.  Rahul knew what he had to do to score runs.  He was trying to play almost every ball of the over and was trying to cover Siraj as much as possible.

 Rain came after 59 overs.  The sky turns black.  The situation was such that even if the rain stopped, the game could not be started.  The umpires therefore decided that the first day would not be played.  Rahul is unbeaten in the last 70 runs of the day.  Now we have to see how much he can enhance India's score on the second day.