Mayank Agarwal hits maiden century against South Africa
After failing to reach the three-figure mark on four occasions before Thursday, Mayank Agarwal finally got over the line on day two of the first Test between India and South Africa at the Dr. Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy ACA-VDCA Cricket Stadium in Visakhapatnam.
Mayank made a dream debut at the Melbourne Cricket Ground at the Boxing Day Test and then went on to impress everyone with his batting at the top while other openers struggled to score runs.
Coming in to bat at 84 not out following the washout of the third session on day one, Mayank resumed his batting watchfully before reaching the century in the 69th over with a single.
But, the bulk of the runs were scored on Wednesday as he went toe to toe with Rohit Sharma, who stole the limelight on his debut as an opener in Test cricket.
The 28-year-old took the attack to the bowlers to begin the game and after an intial few overs, opened up and played his shots. However, he slowed down a tad bit and began to play second fiddle to Rohit, who kept piling on the runs from the other end.
But, Mayank did attack as well.
He slammed 11 fours and two maximums including an inside-out six over cover, which would make any batting great proud.
During the course of the innings on Wednesday, he also broke a hoard of records along with Rohit.
India ended day one on 202/0 and this was also the seventh time an Indian opening pair scored 100+ in first innings together. A Mankad and Farokh Engineer were the first to do so against Australia in Kanpur in 1969/70 while KL Rahul and Parthiv Patel were the last to do so in Chennai against England in 2016/17.
This was also the first century opening stand for India against South Africa since the 137 between Virender Sehwag and Gautam Gambhir in Centurion back in 2010.
Their unbeaten stand following day one was also the third 100+ opening stand overall in 2019 in Tests following New Zealand's 254 and Sri Lanka's 161.
