Marco Jansen stars as Proteas remain in commanding position over India

South Africa are in total control of the second Test against India, having amassed a massive 314-run lead over India in Guwahati after bowling the hosts out for 201 on day three. The Proteas were 26 without loss at stumps, having elected not to enforce the follow-on.

Once again, it was the lanky figure of Marco Jansen who did the damage. On Sunday, he did it with the bat, reaching his highest Test score of 93.

On Monday, he did it with the ball, grabbing a fourth career five-wicket haul after taking six wickets for 48 runs — his first five-for outside of South Africa.

Despite the reputation of India being better suited to spin bowlers, with seamers only getting slight sideways movement with the new ball and then reverse swing with the older ball, on this occasion it was bounce that outdid the Indian batters.

Jansen used his tall (over 2m) frame to extract maximum bounce. His steepling bouncers were particularly vicious to Ravindra Jadeja (6) and Nitish Kumar Reddy (10), whose attempts to evade and defend the ball saw both of them caught at slip by Aiden Markram.

Outside of the brilliance of Jansen and the tight bowling of spinners Keshav Maharaj and Simon Harmer, India did themselves no favours with the willow.

Dhruv Jurel (0) tried to pull a wide delivery by Jansen early on in his innings, while Rishabh Pant (7) ran down the wicket trying to heave the tall left-arm quick.

All four aforementioned wickets came in an outrageous nine-over period bowled between Jansen and Harmer in which seven wickets fell for 25 runs.

Before that, India had a sprightly opening wicket partnership in which KL Rahul (22) and Yashasvi Jaiswal (58) took the home side to 65 without loss.

After them, Washington Sundar (58) and Kuldeep Yadav (19) fought back with a 72-run stand to push India beyond 200, but the calamitous batting sandwiched in between meant India were well behind.

A good wicket

Aside from South Africa setting a mammoth first innings score of 489 and bowling India out cheaply for 201, Jansen believes the conditions at the Dr Bhupen Hazarika Cricket Stadium haven’t favoured either team.

“It is still a good wicket, it is not a bad wicket,” he said after play on day three. “If you bowl well, you will get wickets. If you bat well, you will score runs, in my opinion.

“There is a bit of pace, there is a bit of bounce. The ball is starting to turn a little bit as well. Some of the balls are stopping as well from the spin,” said Jansen in his assessment of conditions.

“The game is going to go more to the spinners’ side of things, in my opinion. The pace and the bounce will stay there, but for seamers in particular, I think we are going to have to make the new ball count.”

A winning target

There are two more days left in the Test match for South Africa to set as big a target as possible and bowl India out one more time to secure a famous series victory in the country for the first time in 25 years.

The decision on how long to bat before declaring will be an important one. If they declare too early on Tuesday with too few runs on the board, India could fight back and win the match. If they declare too late with too many runs on the board, India could block the match out by aiming for a draw.

“We’ll assess tomorrow and see how tomorrow goes, and then depending on how the pitch reacts, Shuks [Shukri Conrad] and Tembs [Temba Bavuma] will make that decision for us,” said Jansen.

“For now, the focus is just to try and get as many runs as possible and then depending on how the wicket plays tomorrow, make a decision according to that.” DM