South Africa and India locked horns on the first day of the ongoing first Test of the two-match series. Both teams are playing this match at the SuperSport Park Centurion. The hosts’ skipper won the toss and asked Team India to bat first; the first day of the match was mostly dominated by the South African team.
Batting first, Indian batters struggled against the South African pace attack; they lost their 3 wickets just at the score of 24 runs in the beginning of the first innings. However, former skipper Virat Kohli and star middle-order batter Shreyas Iyer stitched a crucial 48-run partnership for the fourth wicket before Iyer fell prey to Kagiso Rabada on the last ball of the 27th over.
Later, India faced another blow when Rabada trapped Virat Kohli and got him caught behind the wickets. However, wicketkeeper-batter KL Rahul played a very crucial and sensible knock of 70 runs, hitting 10 fours and 2 sixes to bring India back in the match.
KL Rahul stabilizes India’s response to the fiery Proteas bowling
Other than KL Rahul’s 70-run contribution, Virat Kohli and Shreyas Iyer also added the individual knocks of 38 and 31 runs, respectively. Furthermore, Shardul Thakur also played a small but important cameo of 24 runs, hitting 3 boundaries.
India ended up scoring 208 runs for the loss of 8 wickets at the time of early stumps on day 1 due to the bad lights at the SuperSport Park in Centurion.
Star South Africa pacer Kagiso Rabada claimed an amazing five-wicket haul to put the Indian batting lineup in a tough situation. He also achieved a big milestone by completing 500 internationals with his fifth wicket in Shardul Thakur. Rabada became the 7th Proteas pacer to achieve the milestone of 500 international wickets.
Other than Rabada, young debutant Nandre Burger also scalped 2 wickets, alongside one wicket picked by Marco Jansen.
Here’s how fans reacted after the end of day 1 of the Centurion Test:
South Africa on happier side
— Kirkett (@bhaskar_sanu08) December 26, 2023
India have to make a comeback tomorrow
— Koja (@Koja_hun_ywr) December 26, 2023
ᴅᴀʏ 1 ɢᴏᴇs ᴛᴏ sᴏᴜᴛʜ ᴀғᴇʀɪᴄᴀ
— Hamza (@Hamza_Here7) December 26, 2023
Wish them best of luck for tomorrow
— AFNAN KHAN PTI (@KHANS_PTI) December 26, 2023
Good for team India
— Adnan Ajmal (@adnansworld) December 26, 2023
Outstanding pic.twitter.com/3U0gXpBwpK
— MUHAMMAD BILAL 🖤 (@MBILAL_56) December 26, 2023
Rahul was doing well... Indian might be touch disappointed...
— Naam hain PRATIK (@Tweet_indian00) December 26, 2023
SA ahead for sure . But 250 is a good score on this track
— Allester (@AllesterPinto) December 26, 2023
250 plus will be good total...
— Faisal Yousaf (@faisal7y) December 26, 2023
Good save
— Haider (@HaiderTarrar1) December 26, 2023