South Africa assumed firm control of the second Test in Guwahati on Sunday, piling up a commanding 489 after a remarkable lower-order surge exposed India’s limitations on a benign Barsapara surface. India reached 9 without loss in fading light, still 480 runs adrift and facing an exacting response when play resumes.
The visitors’ dominance was anchored by Senuran Muthusamy’s maiden Test century, a poised 109 off 206 balls, continuing his rich form after a match-winning hand in Rawalpindi last month. Marco Jansen then brutalised India’s spinners with a blistering 93 off 91 deliveries, peppered with seven sixes, the most by an overseas batter in a Test innings in India, eclipsing the marks held by Viv Richards and Matthew Hayden. Kyle Verreynne’s patient 45 provided the glue as South Africa recovered from 246 for 6 to seize the initiative.
The lower order added a staggering 243 runs. Muthusamy and Verreynne put on 88 for the seventh wicket before the centurion forged another 97 with Jansen, whose clean striking laid bare India’s inability to exert sustained pressure across long spells.
India’s bowlers, forced into an extended grind as the innings stretched to 151.1 overs, looked increasingly bereft of ideas by the afternoon. Each of the five specialist bowlers sent down 25 or more overs, an unusually heavy workload. Jasprit Bumrah (2 for 75) remained the only consistently incisive threat, conjuring pockets of reverse swing that briefly unsettled batters in the second session.
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Kuldeep Yadav finished with 4 for 115 but drifted away from the disciplined, teasing lines he had maintained on the opening day, opting for a quicker trajectory that blunted his drift and dip. Muthusamy, Verreynne and Jansen read him cleanly from the hand, neutralising the variations that typically shape his success. The sharper scrutiny, however, fell on Ravindra Jadeja (2 for 94) and Washington Sundar (0 for 58), both of whom struggled to extract turn or deception on a placid track, a reminder of India’s long-standing reliance on sharply turning surfaces. Their quicker, restrictive white-ball rhythms appeared ill-suited to the endurance Test match conditions demanded.
With little assistance from the pitch and no sustained menace from the spinners, Bumrah’s efforts increasingly stood isolated as South Africa’s lower order erased the early gains India had made on the first day.
India will now pin their hopes on the red-soil surface deteriorating sharply over the next two days. Barsapara has historically held firm early before breaking up abruptly, a pattern reminiscent of India’s 2016 comeback against England in Chennai, when they overturned a 477-run first-innings deficit. Jadeja’s seven-wicket haul in that match remains a template the hosts will be desperate to replicate here.
For now, South Africa’s grip on the contest is decisive. India’s batters must produce a robust and disciplined reply to keep the Test alive.
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