Amla, Du Plessis fight for South Africa

Ravichandra Ashwin was adjudged the Man-of-the-match.

Meanshile, India started off well with off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin once again turning out to be the stand-out bowler as he removed opener Dean Elgar (18) and the risky AB de Villiers (9) in the morning session.

In fact even Amla and du Plessis could have been back in the pavillion had it not been the “lives” they got because of the home fielders.

The fairytale wasn’t to be, though, as Amla (39 off 167 balls, 2×4) received a terrific delivery from leg-spinner Mishra.

Amla, whose highest score in the series is 43, edged a catch to Kohli at gully. Perhaps not trusting his defence enough, he moved around in and out of his crease and seemed largely uncomfortable before Ashwin put him out of his misery with a brilliant carrom ball that trapped him leg before.

Ashwin produced a career best 7 wickets for 66 runs and also claimed 12 wickets in the match.

The game only lasted until the final session on the third day with the pitch taking prodigious turn from the opening day one.

And Amla gave a glimpse into how frustrated he was with the sub-standard pitch without getting himself into trouble with the authorities. I think they scored at about one run per over, and they were doing well to find a run. At the moment our team is similar to that, we’re breeding a few younger guys coming in. “The condition we have played in was never like I had played travelling away from home”.

“I don’t mind compromising on (batsmen’s) averages as long as we are winning Test matches”.

“The pitch was a hard factor”.

India struck decisive blows to inch closer to winning the match and the series on the third day of the third Test at the Vidarba Cricket Association (VCA) Stadium here on Friday. “I think you need to find an appropriate balance and sometime small contributions are more important than the big hundreds that we get in Test cricket”, he added.

“It was a challenging wicket, the batsmen applied better in Mohali. Wherever you go in the world, you should be prepared to face those conditions and tune your game accordingly”, Kohli said. The second Test ended in a draw as rain washed out four days in Bengaluru.

Ashwin tops the chart with 24 wickets to his name in the series so far and he was also the leading wicket-taker in the series against Sri Lanka. Such was the Indian bowling domination, that Faf du Plessis (10) and Simon Harmer (13) were the only two other batsmen to get to double-figures for South Africa.