On the opening day of the first test at Cape Town, South Africa found themselves in a spot of bother after being reduced to 12 for three. Indian pacer Bhuvneshwar Kumar had given the visitors much-needed early wickets to lift the moral, but half-centuries from AB de Villiers, Faf du Plessis and a Quinton de Kock cameo helped the hosts post a decent total on board. Bhuvneshwar ended the innings with four wickets.
“If we want to be hard on ourselves, then yes we did give away a few too many runs to South Africa. I think they scored 25-30-odd extra runs. In every hour of play, there were 2-3 overs, where we gave away easy boundaries. That is an area we can improve on,” Bhuvneshwar said at the end of the day’s play.
“It is a concern for us. During the break also, we were talking about bringing the run-rate down because in Test cricket four runs per over is a lot. This is something we want to improve when we bowl in the second innings but overall we are happy with the lines and lengths we bowled,” he added.
As India have already lost three big wickets, including Captain Virat Kohli, Second day could be the decider of the outcome.
