Pretoria: After reducing South Africa A to 128 for six at tea, Indian bowlers let go off the pressure in the final session of the opening day of the second test, which allowed Wayne Parnell and Somin Harmer to make 134-run for the unbroken seventh wicket that helped the hosts finish at 231 for six at LC de Villiers Ovalas on Saturday.
Parnell was playing on 64 whereas Harmer remained unbeaten at 68. Parnell played brilliantly and remained unruffled during his innings in which he faced as many as 172 balls and scored eight boundaries. Contrary to him, Harmer took the charge on Indian bowlers and slammed nine fours and a six during his stay of 115-balls on the crease.
Earlier, Parvez Rasool and pacer Ishwar Pandey bowled brilliantly and scalped two wickets each in quick succession to reduce the Proteas to to 6/97 in 34 overs before the tea-break.
Deciding to bat, South Africa A lost Dean Elgar to Siddharth Kaul early. Elgar got out on the last ball of the fourth over when he ill-timed a short delivery and was safely caught by Shahbaz Nadeem at short mid-wicket. Hendricks repeated the act and paid the price in the first ball of the very next over. Pandey continued his good rhythm in the next over and sent back Rilee Rossouw (3) to the pavilion in his next over.
The hosts were 11 for three in the seventh over and it was the time for skipper Justin Ontong to come into the middle and give Temba Bavuma some good support to get his team out of this scary situation. They added 40 runs before Shahbaz Nadeem got the wicket of Ontong who was caught by Murali Vijay for 28 runs.
Rasool too came into party as he dismissed a couple of South African batsmen in the 34th over to reduce South Africa A to 97 for six. Rasool first scalped wicketkeeper Thami Tsolekile (13) and then got rid of Temba Bavuma (42) LBW in the final delivery of the over.
With some impressive bowling from spin-twins in Shahbaz Nadeem and Rasool, India managed to reduce Africa to 6/128 as they entered the tea break after 51 overs.
South Africa 1st innings: 6/231 in 81.3 overs (Simon Harmer 68*, Wayne Parnell 64*, Temba Bavuma 42, Justin Ontong 28, Siddharth Kaul 1/43, Parvez Rasool 2/39, Ishwar Pandey 2/49, Shahbaz Nadeem 1/65)
