India vs South Africa 1st Test: Mayank Agarwal shines on home debut with maiden double ton
After failing to convert his fifties into hundreds in his first two Test series, Mayank Agarwal on Thursday converted his maiden Test century into an authoritative double hundred on the second afternoon of the ongoing opening Test against South Africa in Vishakhapatnam. With a punch down to long-off, followed by a slight misfield, Mayank reached the massive figure becoming only the fourth Indian after Dilip Sardesai (vs NZ, 1965), Vinod Kambli (vs Eng, 1993) and Karun Nair (vs Eng, 2016) to successfully convert his maiden Test century into a double ton.
When India were in desperate need of an opener to stand up after a long stretch of poor scores at the top of the order, he stepped up to score his maiden half-century in his debut in Melbourne en route to his knock of 76, followed by a 77 in Sydney. And in the West Indies, he performed decently on the tricky tracks. But Mayank Agarwal lacked that one innings that would seal his spot in India's Test playing XI. All until Thursday.
After getting off the mark with a four down the off-side against Philander on day 1 off the very third ball he faced, Mayank suffered his first early LBW scare against the pacer. The 28-year-old was then troubled by Kagiso Rabada with the ball beating his bat thrice in the first half-an-hour. He had control per cent of just 70 in the time frame. But with the pitch going dry in the second hour, Mayank slowly upped his ante to target the spinners. His defense looked tight, he carved some fine range of strokes and most importantly, showed great composure in tackling the tricky situation.
Mayank continued with his patient innings on the second day, scoring his maiden Test century in the morning before converting it to 150 and eventually into a 200 with two runs down long-off.
Earlier in the day, India's fresh opening pair of Mayank and Rohit stitched a record-scripting 317-run partnership, 12th highest opening stand in Test cricket and second for India. The partnership is also the third 300-plus stand for India in the format, 14th for any Test team and second against South Africa. Rohit contributed 176 runs in the partnership in what was his first Test innings as an opener before he was caught outside the crease by Quinton de Kock. After Rohit's dismissal, Mayank rode on the momentum amid quick departures of Cheteshwar Pujara and skipper Virat Kohli to reach the mark in his 358th ball lacing 22 boundaries and five sixes.
