South Africa has defeated India by 135 runs in the second Test taking 2-0 lead in the ongoing Freedom Series.
The hosts had posted 335 runs all out in the first innings with Aiden Markram and Hashim Amla scoring 92 and 82 runs respectively. In reply, India were bowled out for 307 runs even though skipper Virat Kholi played a superb knock of 153 runs. Rest of the Indian batsmen, however, had failed to score even a half century.
South Africa were all out for 258 in their second innings, thereby posing a target of 287 for India to win. But the Indian team were bundled out for 151 runs. For South Africa, Lungi Ngidi, emerged as the pick of the bowler, taking 6 wickets for 39 runs in the second inning.
Speaking after the match, Kohli said, “We thought the wicket was really flat which was quite surprising. When we went in I saw that the pitch was very different from before the toss. It was our best chance to put some runs on the board especially after South Africa lost wickets in the first innings I thought we could gain momentum from that and we should have capitalised as we were in a position to get the lead at one stage.”
South African skipper, Faf du Plessis, said, “Over the last five days it took a lot of work. This was one of the harder test matches in terms of, you had to put a lot in. Bowling was tough, batting was tough. But over the five days I thought we were pretty much on top most of the time. To wrap it up today the way we did, especially in the field we were amazing.”
India had lost the first Test at Cape Town by 72 runs. Kohli was badly trolled on Twitter for failing to lead his side to a win on a foreign soil and also not able to shine with the bat.
(With inputs from BCCI.TV)