India registered a remarkable victory in the first Test at Mohali by defeating the South Africans by 108 runs and went up the four-match series 1-0. The match only took three days to conclude and saw spinners from both the teams dominate the play. The talking point of this match has been the nature of the pitch prepared for the Test, which started aiding spinners right from the beginning of Day 1. Many have questioned that this particular pitch might have been made to aid the spinners, especially as the home side played three spinners in the match, but is actually detrimental to Test cricket.
The match was a very low scoring one, filled with excitement, thrill and was evenly poised but India emerged as the winners.
Let’s take a look at the Hits and Flops from the game:
Hits:
India:
1) Ravindra Jadeja
This was a comeback match for Jaddu and what a comeback. He took eight wickets in the match, demolished the Proteas batting line up and walked away with the Man of the Match award. What a way to mark his return!
2) Ravichandran Ashwin
Ashwin lived up to his reputation as he spun a web around the visiting batsmen with his magical spin and clinched eight wickets to guide India to an ecstatic won in the first Test. He is widely regarded as the strike bowler for India and yet again he proved why is it so.
3) Amit Mishra
Mishra played a pivotal role in this victory as he dismissed the ever dangerous AB de Villiers twice in the match with his superb leg-spin. If ABD would have been standing in the crease, then who knows, may be the win would not have so smooth or worse.
Flops:
1) Shikhar Dhawan
Dhawan got a 'pair' in the Test match and on both the occasions he got himself out in a disastrous fashion, giving clear signs that he is low on confidence. Most probably he will be replaced by KL Rahul in the next match, if not the team management decides to give him another shot.
South AFrica:
Hits:
1) Dean Elgar
From a part-timer, he transformed himself into a full-time spinner and the Indians got the taste of it in the 1st innings. Elgar, with his left-arm spin was able to dismantle the mighty Indian batting earlier in the match, which temporarily gave the Proteas an edge, which they could not capititalise.
2) Imran Tahir
If Elgar rattled the Indians in the 1st innings, the veteran leggie chose to strike in the second innings with some magnificent leg-spin. He dismissed the vital wickets of Vijay and Pujara and helped to bundle out the Indian innings.
Flops:
1) Faf Du Plessis
Faf's performance in this Test was hugely disappointing as he could only manage a run in the entire match. He looked helpless in front of the Indian spinners, which he has to work upon if he wants to perform well in the upcoming Tests.
2) Hasihm Amla
One of the seasoned campaigners of the South African side, Amla was not in his best form in the match. The way in which he gifted his wicket to Ravindra Jadeja in the 2nd innings, was quite shocking as how can an experienced batsman like him afford that kind of dismissal.
