Rustenburg: Ishwar Pandey picked up four wickets on the day three of the first unofficial Test that is being played at Rustenburg, but it was the heroic effort of JP Duminy which allowed South Africa A to hold on at 9/312 at the end of day’s play here on Monday. Duminy’s innings was the cornerstone for the Proteas as he knitted some crucial partnership with the middle-order batsmen which gave them a hope to avoid the follow on.
South Africa A were down and out by the tea as they lost their five wickets in the first couple of sessions. However, Duminy kept his cool as he added 86 runs for the seventh wicket with Thami Tsolekile (47).
Before this, Duminy raised a 75-run stand for the sixth wicket with Justin Ontong, who scored 47 off 82 balls. The only bowler who caused some kind of troubles for the Proteas was Pandey who did well to bag these late wickets and allowed India to keep their ascendancy in this contest.
On the other hand, Nadeem didn’t have much to cheer about as he picked up just one wicket. Suresh Raina scalped two, including the big wicket of Duminy. Duminy added 84 runs for his team's total and stayed on the crease for 280 minutes during which he faced 222 balls.
India had posted a mammoth total of 582 runs on the day two.
Earlier in the day, the South African pair of Dean Elgar and Simon Harmer started the proceedings but Elgar fell quickly as he was wrapped on the pads by Mohammad Shami.
But some sensible batting from Harmer and Rilee Rossouw got them out of that initial trouble as the posted 72 runs partnership after which Harmer departed. He contributed 22 runs to the team’s total but his dismissal brought a bit of panic in the middle-order as he was followed by Rossouw and Temba Bavuma in the matter of just few overs. With this sudden change in the course of the match, South Africa was looking in trouble as they were reduced to 5/119.
Rossouw added 57 runs to the team’s score as he smashed eight fours and couple of sixes which kept the score board moving for the Proteas at a desired rate whereas Bavuma was out for a duck.
The partnership of 75 runs between Ontong and Duminy did trouble the Indian bowlers but Ishwar broke the stand as Ontong nicked the ball straight into the gloves of the Wriddhiman Shah. Ontong scored 47 runs off 82 balls out of which 28 runs came from the boundaries that he hit.
In the final session the only resistance that Indian pace attack was from the duo of Duminy and Tsolekile who survived close to 23 overs. But Ishwar’s efforts was rewarded with the wicket of Tsolekile who scored a valuable 47 runs for his team.