Ashwin restricts South Africa to 127-5 at lunch

Mohali: Off-spinner R Ashwin’s five-wicket haul trumped A B de Villiers’ gritty half-century as India grabbed a narrow 17-run lead after dismissing South Africa for 184 on Day 2 of the first cricket Test here today.

India started the day with an overall lead of 142 runs with eight wickets in hand and a target of extending their lead to somewhere between 300 and 350.

South Africa hardly missed Dale Steyn while bowling India out in the first innings but will probably need his services with the bat later in the day. Imran Tahir and Simon Harmer took four wickets each, but the task for South Africa was still enormous: only twice had visiting teams chased 200 successfully in India, most recently in 1987-88.

The visitors’ fear of losing on a spin-friendly pitch came true as India thumped them by a massive 108 runs inside three days at the IS Bindra Stadium here on Saturday.

Leg-spinner Amit Mishra drove home the advantage by bowling De Villiers for the second time in the test, a flighted delivery sneaking through the South African talisman’s defence.

Opening batsman Elgar had only taken six wickets in 17 Tests before the start of the four-match series, but recorded career-best first-class figures of 4-22 as India were bowled out for 201 after winning the toss.

Earlier, Indian spinners Ravichandran Ashwin (5 for 51), Ravindra Jadeja (3 for 55) and Amit Mishra (2 for 35) skittled out South Africa for 184 in 68 minutes in their first innings. South Africa were faced with the prospect of registering the highest score of the game, in the fourth innings, to go 1-0 up. De Villiers was fooled by the variable bounce of the rapidly deteorating wicket when a Mishra delivery kept low after pitching before crashing into the stumps. The ODI skipper got to his 37th Test fifty with a whack off Jadeja in the mid-wicket region.

In the twenty overs they batted, South Africa hardly looked like making runs at any stage. A possible explanation could be the flat trajectory of the delivery, but Mishra does bowl that fuller flatter one, which turns only a little. Only the man himself can answer what was going inside his head as he left a pretty straight ball from Jadeja, only to see his middle stump flying back.

The Proteas sprang a surprise by sending paceman Vernon Philander to open the innings, a ploy that bombed with Jadeja trapping the batsman leg before with his first ball.

Pujara soon joined his partner in the pavilion after Tahir got the settled batsman to edge one to slip.

Elgar and Amla put on 76 for the third wicket to take the score to 85-2 before the last eight wickets crashed for 99 runs. Similarly, wickets can be taken if you are able to create doubts in the batsmen’s mind.

Major contributions from Murli Vijay (75 and 47) and Cheteshwar Pujara’s patient 77 in the second essay also contributed to the win in the low-scoring encounter.