On the opening day of the first Test match between South Africa and India in Centurion, Kagiso Rabada delivered a magnificent wobbled-seam delivery to castle Shreyas Iyer’s middle stump and end his crucial partnership with Virat Kohli.
Rabada kept three-quarters of the seam beneath his fingertips as he threw the final ball of the 27th over. The ball came in sharply and fell on the stitching a long distance away. The bat only failed to descend in time to shield Shreyas Iyer stumps, and he was caught hanging back in his crease with his feet frozen in place.
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The previous delivery was a big and wide ball that Shreyas Iyer crushed off the middle of his bat, but substitute fielder Keegan Petersen beautifully stopped him at point, so maybe he was expecting a decent length off-stump ball.
With the wicket, India was reduced to 92/4. The visitors had earlier lost their opening three wickets for a pittance. Shubman Gill and Rohit Sharma were dismissed for bad strokes, and Yashasvi Jaiswal was dismissed for a nice ball from Nandre Burger.
From that point on, the No. 4 and No. 5 batsmen took advantage of South Africa’s straight lines to set up a 68-run partnership till lunchtime. After the first intermission, the hosts improved in that area right away.
India in trouble after losing Kohli and Shreyas Iyer, Rahul holds the fort
Three overs later, India lost Kohli, the second-best batsman in the nation’s history to visit South Africa, as they sank more into the muck. With an even better delivery that pitched on the off-stump and veered sharply away to knock the outside edge off his defensive effort towards the wicketkeeper, Rabada managed to get him out.
In lieu of Ravindra Jadeja, India now depend mostly on KL Rahul, Ravichandran Ashwin, and the tail of their fast bowlers to get at least 200 runs while playing with a shorter batting setup.
