The first Test between India and South Africa is evenly poised after the home team made a scintillating comeback in the first session on day 3. With the entire second day lost to rain, India's unbeaten pair of KL Rahul and Ajinkya Rahane came out to bat with the score on 272/3, looking to consolidate the team's position further. But South Africa's pace duo of Lungi Ngidi and Kagiso Rabada were on the money and their pin point accuracy led to a batting collapse.
India were eventually bowled out for 327, with Ngidi finishing with figures of 6/71, while Rabada ended with 3 wickets. Both these pacers mixed their length well, bowling the short delivery and the good length deliveries in a pitch that has become more conducive for fast bowling.
Former South Africa paceman Morne Morkel was impressed with South Africa's approach and said that the match can change very quickly in such conditions.
"You know things can change and go your way, that is why it is always important to stay in the hunt and know that things can change very very quickly," Morkel said on the lunch show on host broadcaster Star Sports.
India's tailenders like Shardul Thakur, Ravichandran Ashwin, Mohammed Shami and Jasprit Bumrah have shown resilience in the past few away tours and scored important runs for the team. But that wasn't to be on Tuesday as the SA pacers made short work of the tail. Morkel spoke about the policy that the South Africans have while bowling to lower order batters and also said that India need to stick to their game plan.
"We have seen in recent tours for India away from home, specially how well the tail bats and gives them that extra bit of runs which is important. I just felt that this morning, they have had such set game plans, leaving well outside the off stump and that sort of fell away again," the paceman said.
"And that is going to be important that they stick to these game plans because South Africa are going to pepper them with a lot of short balls. To the tail the policy in the dressing room is nose and toes.
"And I could hear from the stump mic. They were speaking in Afrikaans, about the deliveries to bowl. So, it is going to be important that they stay strong minded in the back end of the batting line up," Morkel added.