South Africa resorted to dogged stonewalling in their pursuit of an improbable 481-run victory target after Ajinkya Rahane stroked his second century of the match to tighten India’s grip on the fourth and final Test yesterday.
The hosts declared their second innings on 267-5 half an hour before the lunch break as soon as Rahane (100) became the fifth India player to score centuries in each innings of a Test match on the penultimate day at the Ferozeshah Kotla Stadium in New Delhi.
Skipper Hashim Amla led South Africa’s extraordinarily dour reply, taking 46 balls to get off the mark as the visitors crawled to 72-2 at stumps after 72 overs of relentless blocking over two dot ball-littered sessions.
Amla was unbeaten after making 23 painstaking runs from 207 balls, while A.B. de Villiers managed 11 off 91 with South Africa still 409 behind the victory target.
The visitors lost Dean Elgar cheaply before Amla and Temba Bavuma (34) started blocking ball after ball in a desperate bid to take the match into the fifth and final day.
Even after Ravichandran Ashwin dismissed Bavuma, the score moved at a funereal pace as De Villiers also curbed his natural aggression, needing 33 balls to get off the mark.
Despite the presence of contemporary cricket’s most destructive batsman in De Villiers and one of the most fluent scorers in Amla, the first 10 overs of their partnership did not yield a single run and things did not improve later in the day either.
“We have managed to hold them back and hopefully tomorrow we can carry on with the same,” Bavuma told reporters, confident his team could bat out three sessions today to eke out a draw.
“It’s a tough ask to bat out the 90 overs. It will be day five, so you expect the wicket to deteriorate even more, but we have the experience, we have the skill and whatever happens, we will be going down fighting,” he said.
“Definitely we will carry on the spirit tomorrow and try our best to salvage a draw out of this game,” he added.
In a low-scoring series in which no other batsman from either side managed a single century, Rahane took 206 balls to bring up his second of the match and the sixth of his Test career with the help of eight fours and three sixes.
After India resumed on 190-4, Rahane played a couple of uppish drives before bending his knees for an upper-cut, chipping a Morne Morkel delivery over third man in an uncharacteristic show of aggression.
At the other end, captain Virat Kohli (88) added five runs to his overnight score before a low Kyle Abbott delivery trapped him leg before wicket to end the series-high 154-run fifth-wicket partnership.
However, Rahane could not be denied his second century of the match.
The 27-year-old slog-swept Imran Tahir over midwicket for his second six of the innings and stepped out against Elgar for his third to storm into the 90s.
Rahane then took a quick single off leg-spinner Tahir to join an elite league of India players that also includes Vijay Hazare, Sunil Gavaskar, Rahul Dravid and Kohli.
‘SU-PENKO’: Hsieh and Ostapenko face a rematch against their Australian Open final opponents, the same duo Hsieh played in last year’s Wimbledon semi-finals Taiwanese women’s doubles star Hsieh Su-wei and Latvian partner Jelena Ostapenko on Wednesday survived a near upset to the unseeded duo of Sorana Cirstea of Romania and Russia’s Anna Kalinskaya, setting up a semi-final showdown against last year’s winners. Despite losing a hard-fought opening set 7-6 (7/4) on a tiebreak, the fourth seeds turned up the heat, losing just five games in the final two sets to handily put down Cirstea and Kalinskaya 6-3, 6-2. Nicknamed “Su-Penko,” the pair are next to face top seeds Katerina Siniakova of the Czech Republic and Taylor Townsend of the US in a reversal of last
Taiwanese tennis veteran Hsieh Su-wei (謝淑薇) and her Latvian partner Jelena Ostapenko finished runners-up in the Wimbledon women's doubles final yesterday, losing 6-3, 2-6, 4-6. The three-set match against Veronika Kudermetova of Russia and Elise Mertens of Belgium lasted two hours and 23 minutes. The loss denied 39-year-old Hsieh a chance to claim her 10th Grand Slam title. Although the Taiwanese-Latvian duo trailed 1-3 in the opening set, they rallied with two service breaks to take it 6-3. In the second set, Mertens and Kudermetova raced to a 5-1 lead and wrapped it up 6-2 to even the match. In the final set, Hsieh and
Taiwanese tennis veteran Hsieh Su-wei and her Latvian partner, Jelena Ostapenko, advanced to the Wimbledon women’s doubles final on Friday, defeating top seeds Katerina Siniakova of the Czech Republic and Taylor Townsend of the US in straight sets. The fourth-seeded duo bounced back quickly after losing their opening service game, capitalizing on frequent unforced errors by their opponents to take the first set 7-5. Maintaining their momentum in the second set, Hsieh and Ostapenko broke serve early and held their lead to close out the match 6-4. They are set to face the eighth-seeded pair of Veronika Kudermetova of Russia and Elise Mertens
Outside Anfield, the red sea of tributes to Diogo Jota and his brother, Andre Silva, has continued to grow this week, along with questions over whether Liverpool could play at Preston today, their first game since the brothers’ tragic loss. Inside Anfield, and specifically a grieving Liverpool dressing room, there was no major debate over the pre-season friendly. The English Premier League champions intend to honor their teammate in the best way they know how. It would be only 10 days since the deaths of Jota and Silva when Liverpool appear at Deepdale Stadium for what is certain to be a hugely
RSS