Ashish Nehra trusts India needs to play with a mindset of batting only once when they ascend the Warrior field for Day 3 of the first Test against South Africa.
Virat Kohli‘s men went to confound on Sunday with a smart 272/3 on board. But the rain cleaned out the full Day 2, leaving both teams just 3-additional days to force a result. Nehra states that the visitors don’t need to beat their scoring rate because there’s still time in the game, and the pitch benefits the bowlers.
The former left-arm pacer wants India to try and put up a total big enough to bowl South Africa out twice in two days. Nehra told Cricbuzz:
“There are still 4 (3) days left in this Test and the way the game has proceeded so far, the way the pitch has behaved – if it had been a flat pitch and there was no help for bowlers then the day’s loss would have had a bigger impact. It can have an impact still but 4 days on this surface, you can still see a result and India just needs to put runs on the board… Now you don’t want to bat again even more because you have already scored 273 runs and don’t need to drastically increase the run rate.”
Nehra believes that the washout doesn’t affect India much because a 400-plus total from here would nearly rule out a loss for them. Nehra continued:
“If you score around 450, the weather keeps changing and there’s moisture on the pitch then South African batters might also struggle. Runs on board are always running on board. In four-day matches, if the team batting first can put 425-450 runs on the board, they rule out their loss. From India’s perspective, it will have an impact but not much if they can put up 400+ runs and the conditions don’t change much.”
Players on both sides are habitual of the 4-day matches as the format is used in their respective domestic red-ball cricket.
Unfortunately, due to the large volume of rain today at Centurion, play has been called off for the day. #SAvIND pic.twitter.com/NQ5Jbc8MlJ
— BCCI (@BCCI) December 27, 2021
India’s main point of trouble would be the additional moisture to the surface, making the Centurion pitch support fast bowlers in the initial hour of play on Tuesday. Although KL Rahul, batting at 122 and Ajinkya Rahane at 40, can take this phase, 400 or 500 might be on the swags.
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