The good news for South Africa’s bowlers on day one of the first Test against India in Visakhapatnam on Wednesday 2 October was that they only had to bowl 59.1 overs before rain ended play early. The bad news was that after 355 balls bowled, they failed to take a single Indian wicket before play was called off early.

After only two sessions of the three-match series, India had already pushed the Proteas on to the back foot by reaching 202 without loss at stumps.

Rohit Sharma, mostly considered a specialist limited-overs batsman these days, batted with ease on his way to an unbeaten 115, scored off a mere 174 balls.

Sharma’s innings was a chanceless knock that included 12 fours and five meaty sixes, reflecting his one-day skills. By comparison opening partner Mayank Agarwal was pedestrian, scoring 84 from 183 balls.

If the weather clears and play resumes on Thursday, Agarwal looks sure to reach his maiden Test century. He already surpassed his previous best score of 77, made against Australia in Sydney in January.

The further bad news for the beleaguered South African attack, if that’s what it could be called, is it will only become tougher.

When they eventually make a breakthrough, and that didn’t look remotely likely on day one, Cheteshwar Pujara and Virat Kohli are still to come.

The former averages 49.87 and the latter 53.14. It looks as if it will be another day of toil for a South African bowling unit that has three spinners and only Vernon Philander and Kagiso Rabada as seamers.

Keshav Maharaj‚ Dane Piedt and debutant slow left-arm Senuran Muthusamy bowled the bulk of the overs – 35 to be precise – and went for 132 runs without so much as a whiff of a real chance.

In fact, the only trouble the Indian openers encountered was in the first 40 minutes when the new ball and slight moisture in the air gave Philander and Rabada some assistance.

Philander, as he done from Cape Town to Melbourne, beat the outside edge a few times. But the wicket never came.

Rabada ran in hard, tried to bowl fuller and also caused some initial discomfort for the Indian duo before the sun baked the pitch into a road.

The spinning trio toiled but barely turned the ball while there was no bounce to assist them.

The ball simply went up and down to two grateful batsmen who were too good and too hungry not to cash in. DM