South Africa hold a 1-0 lead over India in the three-Test series ahead of the second match in Centurion, starting on Saturday.
The hosts won a thriller, by 72 runs, in Cape Town which brought to the fore plenty of talking points.
Here, we look at three of them:
INDIA CAN’T AFFORD TOP-ORDER TO FALTER AGAIN
The failure of India’s batsmen in the first Test proved their big undoing with no player in the top-order, including skipper Virat Kohli, scoring more than 28 in either innings. With conditions in Centurion likely, once again, to aid pace bowling and favour the hosts, the tourists will have to be more secure outside off-stump and bat with greater patience.
India need the batters to step-up rather than rely on the likes of Hardik Pandya and Ravichandran Ashwin plundering runs. Calls to bring back KL Rahul and Ajinkya Rahane at the top, in place of Shikhar Dhawan and Rohit Sharma, have dominated punditry talk but shot selection and concentration rather than personnel is the main concern.
Indian captain Kohli struggled against the moving ball.
HOW DO SOUTH AFRICA MANAGE WITH DALE STEYN’S ABSENCE?
Whilst we have just seen Australia’s pace attack prove just too good for England in the Ashes, South Africa’s bowlers come into that same quality bracket. With Kagiso Rabada, Morne Morkel and Vernon Philander all in fine fettle, Steyn’s injury absence throughout the rest of the series will be felt, but not so much as it would have been five or six years ago. Still, it is a blow that the iconic quick is on the treatment table again.
The out-and-out pace of Duanne Olivier will likely be South Africa’s go-to option given the 25-year-old has Test cricket experience under his belt after taking 17 wickets at an average of 23.11 in his only five Tests to date, all played in 2017.
Olivier should slot into the South Africa attack.
CAN INDIA GET AB DE VILLIERS OUT EARLY?
Having only made his return to Test cricket last month following an 18-month hiatus from the game and doubts as to whether we would ever see him in whites again, South Africa’s mercurial batsman showed just why, in the first Test, that the game’s longest format is a better place when he’s at the crease. De Villiers scored an 84-ball 65 in the first innings when India were bowling well with the help of seam and swing, and he also chipped in during the second.
Simply put, his runs were vital and swung the momentum the Proteas’ way in the end. India need to bowl tighters line and pitch it up more against AB, especially when the 33-year-old is looking to attack.
In Test whites again: AB de Villiers.
