Double Ton Ticked Off Rohit’s Test List

After three ODI double tons, opener reaches the mark in Tests too with support from centurion Rahane. South Africa did bounce out Rohit Sharma but it was after he tempted fate once too often. As Kagiso Rabada celebrated after Lungi Ngidi took the catch at long-leg, Sharma left to a spate of pats and handshakes from the South African players. Cricket’s innate decency makes teams do that— acknowledge the effort of an opponent even when it grinds them to dust.
Questioning the efficacy of South Africa’s plan to bowl short to Sharma would be his numbers: 212 runs in 255 balls with 28 fours and six sixes. Ajinkya Rahane’s 115, his 267-run fourth-wicket stand with Sharma, Ravindra Jadeja’s 51 and Umesh Yadav getting to 30 in 10 balls with five sixes helped India declare on 497/9.
South Africa were 9/2 when bad light and rain stopped the second day’s play in the final Test 97 minutes and 34 overs before the scheduled 5pm close on Sunday.
“The light doesn’t look great after tea here and it is going to keep happening, I assume,” said Sharma, whose first double-century in Tests came nearly two years after his third score of over 200 in One-day Internationals.
AVID PULLER
Sharma is unfazed by chin music; he plays the pull, often off the front foot, with such élan it doesn’t look like the high-risk shot it is. His sense of position and ability to pick the length early before letting supple wrists take over is comparable to Greg Louganis perfectly executing three and-a-half somer sault with a tuck. The shot is more about panache than power and Sharma has attributed his mastery over it to playing on concrete pitches in the Mumbai suburb he grew up in.
In the presence of a good crowd on Sunday and with protection at deep square-leg and deep midwicket, Ngidi decided to test Sharma when he was on 199. Sharma got to his double-century with a pull in front of square-leg that fetched six.
In this innings, Sharma has had a way of reaching milestones. The 100 came with a six, 50 with a four making reaching 150 with a dab to mid-on an aberration. Two balls later, Ngidi tried again and this time it bisected the deep fielders and sailed over. Twice Sharma had played similar shots to the same bowler, whose comeback has fetched ordinary returns, before lunch on Saturday. Both were boundaries.
Consistency key Debutant Linde, South Africa’s most successful bowler with 4/133 said the need to be consistent was the lesson for their bowlers. “It is not easy to bowl in India because your line needs to be a lot straighter. In South Africa, you can go a bit wide because there is more bounce.”

By – Abhishek Singh
Content - https://www.pressreader.com/