South Africa had increased their hold on the match in Guwahati when the man of the day was Marco Jansen who delivered a superb six-wicket haul with India reduced to 201, giving their visitors a colossal 288-run first-innings advantage. South Africa did not use the follow-on, even with the cushion, but proceeded to press with the ball and take advantage of the turning situation.
The morning session was a short-term stay of India courtesy of Washington Sundar (48) and Kuldeep Yadav (14) who made a patchwork following the collapse of India to 102/4. Sundar was a mislead, calm gentleman who was as stubborn as he was articulate and rattled the visitors and it was not until Simon Harmer got rid of him through his third wicket that he was able to score a point. Their alliance had already brought India to 174/7 at lunch and given some ray of hope following a very poor beginning.
Jansen was, however, still the destroyer-in-chief. He had Ravindra Jadeja (6) dismissed in a peculiar way, a short delivery banging off the shoulder of Jadeja on the bat before falling safely in the slips. He recalled Rishabh Pant (7) and Nitish Kumar Reddy (10) a few minutes later and initiated a late-innings collapse.
The collapse of India began in the second session in a dramatic manner. They collapsed to spin pressure after a good opening stand of 65 runs. It was a sharp turning delivery by Simon Harmer that sent Yashasvi Jaiswal (58) home dismissing him with a sharp turn that created an outer edge that Jansen took. Harmer then replaced Sai Sudharsan (15) and KL Rahul (22) dropped nudging Keshav Maharaj to make a run. Having been off to a very good start, India had suddenly to fight to survive.
On Day 2, earlier, the partnership of Kyle Verreynne and Senuran Muthusamy had established the dominance of South Africa as they continued the partnership overnight without scoring in the morning. Jadeja eventually prevailed with a neatly timed stumping, but Muthusamy continued to be present so that South Africa never lost its grip.
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