Spinners win first Test for India

R Ashwin continued his dream run, Ravindra Jadeja made a spectacular comeback to Indian team and Amit Mishra allied himself beautifully with the two tweakers to spin South Africa out of the opening Test.

On a pitch that wasn’t as bad as the South African batsmen perceived it to be, the Indian spin troika ran riot to help the hosts emerge a convincing 108-run victors here at the IS Bindra stadium on Saturday. Ashwin and Jadeja claimed eight wickets in the match while Mishra accounted for A B de Villiers in both the innings. With two full days’ play left in the first of the four-Test series, the Indians earned an early Deepavali break.

Resuming their second innings at the overnight score of 125/2 and an overall lead of 142, India went about their job without much trouble.

The hosts belied all the talk about the difficult nature of the pitch. Cheteshwar Pujara and Virat Kohli added 36 in the first hour of play as India effectively extended their cushion to 178 when the course of the innings took an extraordinary ‘turn’.

India lost all their remaining eight wickets in a matter of 119 deliveries, spread on either side of lunch. Leg-spinner Imran Tahir and offie Simon Harmer snared four wickets each as the hosts could add only 39 more runs before being dismissed for 201. Combined with their narrow 17-run first innings lead, India set the visitors a target of 218; difficult but not impossible.

However, from the moment man of the match Jadeja (5/21) struck to remove a promoted Vernon Philander with the seventh ball of the chase, things went only southward for the Proteas. By the 10th over of the innings, South Africa had lost four wickets for just 32 and that included three of their biggest names – skipper Hashim Amla, Faf du Plessis and De Villiers. From there on, it was a point of no return for Amla and company.