Promising young batters Keegan Petersen and Rassie van der Dussen looked confident in their 55-run unbroken stand for the fourth wicket as South Africa reached 100 for three at lunch on the second day of third and final Test against India.
Jasprit Bumrah (11-4-16-2) and Umesh Yadav (7-1-29-1) bowled two top notch deliveries to get rid of opener Aiden Markram (8) and night-watchman Keshav Maharaj (25) but Petersen (40 batting) and van der Dussen (17 batting) held fort with lot of confidence despite a testing morning session of fast bowling from the Indian line-up.
For skipper Virat Kohli, quick wickets are the need of the hour as he won’t be able to concede a big first innings lead while defending a below-par first innings score of 223.
There were a couple of times, Shardul Thakur (6-1-21-0) did find the outside edge of Petersen’s bat but on both occasions, the ball died down before skipper Kohli at first slip.
The bounce available on the Newlands track isn’t as steep as it was at Centurion and Wanderers which belong to the Highveld region.
Perhaps, standing up a few yards ahead especially to someone like Shardul who is just about skiddy medium pace perhaps would have been an ideal decision.
The morning started on a bright note for India as Markram got a beauty from Bumrah that jagged back enough to hoodwink him and clip the off-stump when the batter must have thought that it would just go straight.
Maharaj, on his part did a very good job and played out the first 45 minutes before Umesh bowled a classical inswinger that uprooted the middle stump.
Petersen however kept his positive intent as he struck seven boundaries in his 86-ball knock so far while Van Der Dussen was ready to play the waiting game in contrast to his second innings show at the Wanderers.
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