South Africa further asserted their dominance over the second Test with Marco Jansen and Simon Harmer striking two crucial blows towards the end of the day, and India lost KL Rahul and Yashasvi Jaiswal to put them in a difficult position at 27/2 at the end of the fourth day. India now has uphill task facing a huge target of 549 to pursue and only three and a half sessions to survive after being at the receiving end of 522 runs, India has to achieve outstandingly well to stay alive.
India started the day in good spirits, and Ravindra Jadeja and Washington Sundar take three important wickets during the morning session, including Ryan Rickelton, Aiden Markram and Temba Bavuma. Their initial achievements were stopping South Africa momentarily in the scoring rate, and this gave India some hope.
Yet soon South Africa regained power. Tristan Stubbs and Tony de Zorzi made an 101-run alliance at the fourth wicket, scolding careless balls and keeping the scoring tally going. The stand was later broken by Jadeja who dismissed de Zorzi at 49 but this did not stop the momentum. Stubbs was now confident and with Wiaan Mulder at his elbow, he drove the lead way out beyond that of 500. Stubbs was in danger of a century it deserved but South Africa called it at 260/5.
There was a previous instance of Gautam Gambhir, the head coach of India, giving his team a passionate team talk, pre-match, where he urged his team to be strong following their total outplay in the first three days. India had lost a session to South Africa in comparison to their eight. Their collapse on Day 3, which had reached 201 all out, had already put them on the backfoot, in spite of Jaiswal fighting on with a half-century.
The initial-innings score of 489 by South Africa, comprising of 109 by Senuran Muthusamy and 93 by Marco Jansen put India at a loss of where to start on a pitch that was not very friendly to bowlers.
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