SA and India greeted by sunshine in Centurion for day 3 of Boxing Day Test
Image: Mahlatse Mphahlele
SA and India's players were greeted by glorious sunshine and a cloudless sky on arrival at SuperSport Park for day three of the Boxing Day Test on Tuesday morning.
Play was scheduled to start at 10am.
Day two on Monday turned out to be a damp squib as umpires were forced to abandon play in the afternoon without a ball bowled due to inclement highveld rain.
India will resume on 272/3 with opener KL Rahul on 122 off 248, 17 boundaries and one maximum. He will be joined by Ajinkya Rahane, who was unbeaten on 40.
Rahul’s seventh century overshadowed the gallant efforts of Proteas fast bowler Lungi Ngidi who ended the first day with all the three wickets that fell on Sunday, when the SA bowling attack largely struggled.
Rahul will be motivated to go for his maiden Test double century while Rahane, who looked solid on day one, will have ambitions of scoring big and giving India the advantage.
At stumps on Sunday, Ngidi said SA would have to try to restrict India to at least 350. He will need support from Kagiso Rabada, Marco Jansen, Wiaan Mulder and Keshav Maharaj to achieve that objective.
Rabada, Jansen, Mulder and Maharaj have their work cut out for them because India still have capable middle-order batters in Rishabh Pant and Ravichandran Ashwin, besides Rahul and Rahane.
They will be followed by the rest of the tail, which includes Shardul Thakur, Mohammed Shami, Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammed Siraj in what may be an intriguing day three on Wednesday.