Kohli, Rahane prop India to strong position
The first innings centurion Rahane joined Kohli when India was precariously placed at 57 for 4.
Indian Test skipper Virat Kohli and Ajinkya Rahane stitched together the first century partnership of the India-South Africa Test series on day three of the fourth Test at Feroz Shah Kotla ground in New Delhi on Saturday.
Rahane joined Kohli when India was precariously placed at 57 for 4. Kohli and Rahane put on an unbroken 133-run partnership.
At stumps, India is strongly placed at 190 for 4 in their second innings with Virat Kohli (83) and Ajinkya Rahane (52) still at the crease. With this India swelled their lead to 403 with six second innings wickets remaining.
Earlier, Morne Morkel was the best bowler in view for the Proteas with figures of 3/22 in 14 overs — the stand-out delivery being the scorching yorker which dismissed Shikhar Dhawan.
Obviously the huge first innings lead and the amount of time left in the game ensured that they could play freely.
Kohli hit a glorious cover drive off Abbott, one past backward point off Morkel and tucked one to square leg boundary as he quickly reached 30.
Rahane, on the other hand, was happy to nudge and push around letting his captain play the role of an aggressor. In between, a stand—out shot was a clip off his hips to dispatch Morkel to the boundary.
Earlier, India started the day on a disastrous note, losing Vijay to a lethal short ball bowled by Morkel. The tall speedster hit the back of length area and the ball kicked up viciously.
The normally technically sound Vijay tried to awkwardly fend it off to get out of the way. The ball looked like brushing his armguards before being taken by Dane Vilas behind the stumps as he timed his jump to perfection.
This team management promoted Rohit Sharma at No 3 trying to give him some valuable time with less pressure and a sizeable lead on the board. But the Mumbai lad again disappointed his fans as Morkel bowled one fuller that move a shade to rattle his off-stump.
Cheteshwar Pujara (28), who sustained a bruise in his forearm yesterday and could not field, carried on manfully till lunch session.
Pujara whipped Dane Piedt through midwicket for a boundary even though he faced some difficulty while facing Kyle Abbott before getting a couple of streaky boundaries.
Dhawan (21), however, was more assured against Abbott and twice hit off-drives to collect boundaries but was apparently more cautious against the spinners as he failed to get the scoreboard moving during his 86-ball stay.
The Pujara-Dhawan duo added 45 runs but South Africa again struck in the post-lunch session.
First it was Pujara, who tried to cut one from Tahir that stayed low and knocked his off-stump.
But then it took a beauty from Morkel to get rid of Dhawan. The speedster came from round the wicket and bowled a toe-crushing inswinging yorker that hit the base of leg stump even as the local boy tried bringing his bat down on time.
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