South Africa lost four crucial wickets and were 74-4 at lunch on the second day of the second Castle Test at Sahara Stadium Kingsmead today as they chased a modest 205 India put up on the scoreboard in their first innings. In total eight wickets fell in the two and half hour first session – India, who resumed on 183-6, lost four wickets for 22 runs off 55 balls while South Africa lost four wickets for 74 runs in 16.4 overs in the 90 minutes they had before the break.
For the Indians it was a much better bowling performance than the one at SuperSport Park last week where they lost by an innings and 25 runs and who trail 1-0 in the three-match Test Series, as Zaheer Khan, who was re-introduced into the team after an injury lay-off, produced two telling blows for his beleaguered team.
He first dismissed South African captain Graeme Smith – caught behind by MS Dhoni for nine as the home side reached 23 in the fifth over – and then sent back Alviro Petersen (24) with the score on 46. Petersen dragged the ball back on to his stumps as he tried to work it to fine leg.
Soon after that and with lunch approaching Shantakumaran Sreesanth produced a wicked delivery that AB de Villiers could not get away only edge it to Dhoni behind the stumps and disappeared for a duck.
Hashim Amla, playing in his 50th Test was at the crease with an unbeaten 24 – he faced 33 balls and his innings included 5 well struck boundaries. He will be joined by Ashwell Prince at the crease after the break.
Earlier in the day India, resuming on 183-6 and with little hope of getting across the 200 mark managed to finish on 205 after 65.1 overs.
The man who destroyed their strong batting line-up which has rarely got out of the starting blocks at Kingsmead – or for that matter anywhere in South Africa – was Dale Steyn, who finished with 6-50 off
19 overs.
Steyn picked up the wickets of Virender Sehwag (25), Murali Vijay (19), Rahul Dravid (25) and VVS Laxman (38) in a fiery spell on the opening day when he finished with 4-36 and added the scalps of Harbhajan Singh (21) and Dhoni (35) today to end with 6-50 – his 15th five or more wicket haul in a Test.
Morne Morkel helped himself to two wickets as well while giving away 68 runs and Lonwabo Tsotsobe finished with 2-40.
