India vs South Africa 2008, 3rd Test, Day 1 Highlights
Posted April 12th, 2008 by Nanda No Comments »
A good day for India after they lost the toss. Graeme Smith’s luck with the coin continued yesterday as he won a crucial toss on a pitch that would deteriorate from the first day itself. There was no exception to this as the spinners played an important part in India’s bowling performance.
The opening pair of Smith and Mckenzie started strongly, putting on another 50 plus partnership. Then Amla and Smith combined to score 91 runs. At this stage the South Africans were looking to run away with the match. India had other ideas. Dhoni captaining for the first time in tests, brought in Yuvraj Singh who provided the breakthrough by getting Smith straight away. Amla was then bowled by an Ishant special. Kallis followed soon after. South Africa tumbled down to 161-4 as they lost 3 quick wickets in the space of 5 overs.
Prince, de Villiers, Boucher and Morkel all got starts but none went on to score anything considerable. For India, Harbhajan Singh and young Piyush Chawla combined to pick up 5 wickets. Ishant got 3 to his name and 1 each to Yuvraj and Sehwag. India should now look to capitalise on this strong bowling performance. Any lead would be handy, however a lead of 150 should be match winning. On the other hand, the pitch has had pretty variable bounce on Day 1 itself, so the South African fast bowlers would be looking to use that to their advantage.
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