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[Saba Sports News] Following South Africa’s decisive victory over India in the Boxing Day Test at Centurion, the action shifted to Cape Town for the second Test starting on January 3. On the first day, with stand-in captain Dean Elgar opting to bat after winning the toss, cricket analysts made their predictions. Sanjay Manjrekar, a former Indian batter, estimated India would take three wickets in the opening session, while analyst Piyush Chawla expected four wickets.
Contrary to these predictions, India’s pace attack, spearheaded by Mohammed Siraj, significantly outperformed expectations. Demonstrating excellent control and exploiting the conditions, Siraj secured a six-wicket haul. His teammates, Jasprit Bumrah and Mukesh Kumar, contributed two wickets each, helping to dismiss South Africa for a mere 55 runs in just 23.2 overs.
During the lunch break, Manjrekar humorously reflected on the inaccurate predictions, joking that he and other cricket experts should be dismissed for their poor forecasting, quipping, “We should be sacked for poor prediction.”
In reply, India needed a strong start but faced an early setback when Kagiso Rabada dismissed Yashasvi Jaiswal for a duck. However, Rohit Sharma and Shubman Gill revived the innings with a 55-run partnership. Sharma’s contribution of 39 off 50 balls ended with his dismissal by Nandre Burger. Virat Kohli then joined Gill, and together they added 33 runs before Gill was caught at gully off Burger’s bowling. India reached 105/3 before losing Shreyas Iyer, slipping to 110/4. Despite these losses, India had already established a lead of over 50 runs, posing a challenge for South Africa to mount a comeback in the Test.