The Proteas reduced India, trailing by 484 on the first innings, to 454 for eight in the second essay when heavy downpours brought a premature end to the fourth day’s play. “There is plenty of time tomorrow,” Harris pointed out. “We would love to bowl India out as quickly as possible and not have to bat again. We are 30 ahead at the moment and hopefully, we can get the last two wickets by then. If not, we will go out and knock off the runs. If it rains the whole of tomorrow, we can’t do anything about it.”
Paying handsome compliments to Tendulkar and Mahendra Singh Dhoni, who put on 172 for the seventh wicket, Harris went on, “Maybe in a way we lost a bit of intensity after lunch, but India played with more intensity too. Two very very good players played very very well.
Dhoni took the game to us, played very positively. That’s the beauty of Test cricket, it’s about taking the initiative. India did that after lunch, but we did that just before close.”