South Africa dominated the opening day of the first Test match against India at Centurion's SuperSport Park on Tuesday, December 36. Kagiso Rabada's five wickets put India in trouble but an unbeaten fifty from KL Rahul balanced the rain-hit Day 1 play of the Boxing Day Test.
Temba Bavuma won the crucial toss at a pace-friendly surface and handed Test debuts to David Bedingham and Nandre Burger. India started with four pacers and one spinner with Prasidh Krishna making his red-ball cricket debut today.
As expected, South African pacers dominated the start with three early wickets of the Indian top-order. Rabada gave a breakthrough with captain Rohit Sharma's wicket in the fifth over and then debutant Burger removed youngsters Shubman Gill and Yashasvi Jaiswal.
India made an impressive comeback with Virat Kohli (38) and Shreyas Iyer (31) adding 68 runs for the fourth wicket. But Rabada dominated after lunch with four more wickets and put the Proteas in a dominant position to bowl out India's innings on Day 1.
But KL Rahul's stubborn fightback with 70* off 105 balls and valuable 24 runs from Shardul Thakur helped India score a total of 208/8 in 59 overs. Rain delayed the start of the game and also forced for early stumps at SuperSport Park.
Meanwhile, Rabada took five for 44 while Burger claimed two for 50. Rabada also completed 500 wickets in international cricket to claim a huge achievement on Tuesday.
South Africa Playing XI: Dean Elgar, Aiden Markram, Tony de Zorzi, Temba Bavuma (c), Keegan Petersen, David Bedingham, Kyle Verreynne (wk), Marco Jansen, Gerald Coetzee, Kagiso Rabada, Nandre Burger
India Playing XI: Rohit Sharma (c), Yashasvi Jaiswal, Shubman Gill, Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, KL Rahul (wk), Ravichandran Ashwin, Shardul Thakur, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Siraj, Prasidh Krishna
