Individuals shine in open India, South Africa Test
Although the first match between India and South Africa proved to be a one-sided affair, there were a few individual feats achieved by players from both sides.
There were three South Africans and one Indian who strengthened their individual records. The players were Jacques Kallis, Paul Harris, Morne Morkel and Sachin Tendulkar.
The Test match was special for Tendulkar, as he became the first batsman to reach 50 Test match hundreds. His efforts were not good enough to save his team from a humiliating defeat, but the feat he achieved was phenomenal. Tendulkar has the highest number of Test and one-day international centuries, and is also the leading run scorer in both formats of the game. Age hasn’t affected his batting at all, and he still remains a threat for his opponents.
Jacques Kallis helped his team reach a massive total of 620, which gave the South African team a huge first innings lead over India. Kallis completed his 38th Test hundred and then managed to build on it, as he reached his first double century in Test cricket.
Kallis has been an exceptional talent for http://www.senore.com/Cricket/South-Africa-c757 over the years, and he has proved to be the best ever all-rounder the world has ever seen. He was criticised by some for not scoring a double century in his career, despite having scored a number of big hundreds. However this performance with the bat will have silenced his critics.
Apart from these two great batsmen, the bowlers also had something to cheer about as well in the match. South African pace ace http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Morne-Morkel-c77722 grabbed his 100th Test victim in the first innings of the match, and went on to record his best bowling figures in Test cricket. Morkel grabbed five wickets for just twenty runs in his devastating spell of bowling.
Morkel was joined by Paul Harris, who also grabbed his 100th Test wicket by dismissing http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Virender-Sehwag-c95429 in the fourth innings of the match. The tall left-arm bowler remained on 99 wickets after the fast bowlers did the trick for South Africa in the first innings.
He was given just a single over in the first innings and considering the dominance of the South African bowlers, he wouldn’t have expected to bowl much in the second innings either. http://www.senore.com/Cricket/India-c750 however put up some stiff resistance second time around, and Harris achieved his milestone by claiming the first Indian wicket in their second innings.
It was a remarkable Test match which saw many individual records. The best of all the records was that of Sachin Tendulkar, but that was overshadowed by an innings defeat at the hands of the South African team.
Tags: