It was a mixed day for the Indians at the Wanderers in Johannesburg as they took hold of the match after being bowled within the first hour of the day’s play. It was particularly some disciplined bowling from the pacers that saw the Indians claw back into the match. South Africa after a solid start lost their way in the middle to be left stranded on 213/6 at the end of second day’s play.
Ishant Sharma, Mohammad Shami and comeback man Zaheer Khan toiled hard on a pitch, that had a lot on the offering for the bowlers, to keep the Protean batsmen under pressure throughout the innings. They got an early breakthrough when Alviro Petersen was trapped leg before by an incoming Ishant Sharma delivery. But it was their misfortune that they didn’t get rewarded for their effort as the ball went past the outside edges of Graeme Smith and Hashim Amla on numerous occasions. Dropped catches did not help them either. In fact Smith was dropped on 19 when he was looking really perplexed. He then went on to make 68. Had the catch been taken in the first slip by Ashwin, things could have been much worse for the home team.
The Indians were finally rewarded after the tea break when Hashim Amla (36) was castled by a ball from Ishant Sharma that came in from nowhere. Finally Ishant got his rewards for his patient bowling. On the very next ball he trapped Jacques Kallis (0) on the legs in front and the floodgates opened. The very next over in came Zaheer Khan and this time Smith (68) was caught on the legs by Zak by a full length delivery that did just enough to beat the bat. As Sharma and Zaheer made the inroads into the Protean batting, Mohammad Shami came in and in the very first over of a new spell picked the important wickets of JP Duminy (2) and AB De Villiers (13). 39 balls, 16 rums and 5 wickets; SA was done and dusted by some traditional swing bowling well mixed up with lethal late reverse swing by the Indian pacers.
However at the end of the day Indians did find themselves unhappy as they could not finish it off and letting off the pressure created on the hosts. The dropped catch of Faf Du Plessis by Rohit Sharma did really hurt the Indians. Vernon Philander (48*) and Du Plessis (17*) did restore some stability in the South African innings with controlled 
aggression.
Earlier in the day it was some fiery display of pace bowling from the hosts as they wrapped up the Indian innings before the end of the first hour of the play. Overnight not out batsmen Rahane and Dhoni almost played away the dangerous first half-an-hour but could not keep going as Dhoni (17) fell nicking one outside off-stump. Rahane (47) and Zaheer (0) followed him in the very next over. Ashwin (11*) tried to score as many runs as possible but ran out of partners as Ishant Sharma (0)and Mohammad Shami (0) found the pace and bounce too hot to handle.
As of now the match is perfectly in balance at the end of the second day’s play. It can go either way. A lead of 40-odd runs in the first innings may well turn out to be a crucial lead. An intriguing day of test match cricket awaits as the two teams will be coming out hard at each other on the third day of the match.
Tags: 1st test AB De Villiers Dhoni Du Plessis India vs SA India vs South Africa Ishant Sharma Jacques Kallis Johannesburg test Mohammad Shami Vernon Philander Zaheer Khan
