Cape Town [South Africa], January 4 (ANI): Skipper Rohit Sharma labelled their maiden Cape Town Test victory as being right up with India’s famous Gabba victory in 2021.
The second Test at Newlands, saw India claiming a seven-wicket win with a total of 642 deliveries bowled in both innings. The Test was the shortest in the history of red-ball cricket, eclipsing the previous shortest involving Australia and South Africa in 1932 in Melbourne (656).
After completing the win in five sessions, Rohit talked about the importance of their emphatic victory and said as quoted from ESPNcricinfo, “It’ll be one of our best Test match victories. Having not won here in Cape Town [before], obviously this puts it right up there with all the victories that we’ve had. It’s very hard to compare the Test matches that you play because every Test match has its own importance and own relevance. The Test match that we won at The Gabba as well. The last test match that was lost by Australia in Brisbane was in 1988, I think. Nearly after 23, 24 years [32 years] we won the Test match there. It kind of became like their fortress. They never lose a test match there.”
India’s leading pace pair of Jasprit Bumrah (6-61) and Mohammed Siraj (6-15) were the architects of India’s redeeming, series-levelling win. Siraj’s first-inning spell set the tone of the game as South Africa succumbed to a score of 55. In the second inning, Bumrah ran past South Africa’s middle order and ensured South Africa couldn’t put up a massive score on the board.
“And the way we won that Test match as well was quite important. From where we came, we were 1-nil down, we won in Melbourne and then we drew the Test match in Sydney and then won in Brisbane. So you can’t really rank the Test matches, but this has to be right up there because we had not won here. That shows how important a venue this is for us to come here and perform. I give a lot of credit to our team to put up a performance like that and win the game,” Rohit said.
Rohit further went on to speak about the importance of determining the conditions and then sticking to the game plan that they had for the game.
“We knew it was not gonna be a high-scoring game. So all we wanted to do was stay disciplined in how we bowl, not get ahead of ourselves and try and do too many things. Once we got them all out for 55, we spoke to the batters that we needed small contributions in this game,” Rohit said.
“It was not gonna be an easy pitch to bat on. So how much ever you can try and score, apply yourself, get hit on your body, it’s fine, but just go and put yourself ahead. If you have to take a blow, be ready for it. That’s something that we spoke of. To be honest, the top four or five batters showed a lot of grit. We knew that the first-innings lead here was going to be crucial. Never thought we would lose six wickets for no runs. Little disappointing, but again that happens. Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Siraj, they spearheaded our bowling attack. They put the ball in the right areas and let the pitch do the rest, and they got rewarded for it,” Rohit added. (ANI)
