“One of South Africa’s greatest test win”, says Graeme Smith after Proteas’ win over India

Just before the second match that is after winning the first test at Centurion every Indian was pretty much confident that the job will be done at Johannesburg and team India will be winning a test series for the first time at South Africa. Alas! Everything went to the mud as Dean Elgar and his boys played some brilliant cricket throughout the match and gave India no chance to take control.

This win was very important from the South African point of view. There’s no team who takes them seriously these days and feels that it will be an easy one. It is definitely not like that, something that Kagiso Rabada, Lungi Ndidi and others proved. Former Proteas Captain, Graeme Smith went on to call it one of the biggest test wins for South Africa. In a tweet, the legend said, “Seen a few over time, but this is One of SA cricket's greatest test win”.

Whether this is just emotion or something else, of course we don’t know but one thing is for sure, this will give them so much confidence and this may change their culture altogether. Just like South Africa deserves all the praises, team India needs to understand where things went wrong for them. In a pitch where bowlers could have dominated, Indian pacers had the intensity but failed to bowl in the right areas. You can’t blame them because the Indian bowlers who have played an instrumental role every time can fail once but the batters should have stepped up and delivered. Cheteshwar Pujara and Ajinkya Rahane scored a fifty but being a senior experienced batsman, they should have scored more than just that. Especially with 2 days left. Nevertheless, credit goes to the Proteas for being excellent in every department and specially Dean Elgar for leading from the front.

He took blows against Mohammed Shami and Jasprit Bumrah and showed that he is a man of steel. With his brilliant 96 not out in the second innings he took the Proteas home and brought the series into level terms. Both the teams will go all out at Cape Town to win the series as team India will continue to look for their first series win in South Africa while the Proteas will try to establish that you just can’t take them lightly.

 The skipper and the Man of the Match, Dean Elgar in the post match presser said, “I said to myself I’m going to be there till the end as a senior batter, someone who’s been around for a long time. I needed to take the responsibility”. He added, “It is not always going to work out but today it worked out. It’s a highly stressful and intense series against the Indians”.

With Virat Kohli, the Indian skipper coming back into the mix, expect Indian players to be charged up for the third test. A classic test match is on the cards as the third and final test of the series starts from 11th of January.