Former South Africa pacer Morne Morkel showered lots of praises to the Indian pace bowling unit as Bumrah & Co. continued their impressive run in the last session of the first day at Johannesburg.
On the first day, India bowled out for 202 as the stand-in skipper top-scored the innings with a fifty. Though late in the day Indian pacers asked lots of questions to Dean Elgar and Co., yet they finished the day with a score of 35/1 in 18 overs but there was a barrage of plays and misses as Indian pacers were all over Dean Elgar and Keegan Petersen after getting Aiden Markram very early in the innings.
Morne Morkel is quite impressed with Shami as the 31-year old once again provided the first breakthrough in form of Aiden Markram and he asked questions throughout his first spell. In the first test at Centurion, he also picked 8 wickets in the Test match to script a historic win for India as the visitors became the first Asian side to win a Test at this venue.
“He’s just a fine-tuned engine at the moment. He’s running in, landing the ball in the perfect areas consistently. He’s making the ball talk and making the life of South African batters very hard,” Morkel said on Star Sports before the start of play on Day 2.
“The (Jasprit) Bumrah and Shami partnership just create wickets. Even when they finish, the batters think ‘okay we can score now’ so India can pick up wickets even then. We spoke about him. Shami is someone who is really respected in the South African dressing room. They work on different game plans against him but so far, he’s just been too good,” Morkel added further.
Notable that India is missing the services of their regular captain in the Johannesburg Test as Kohli was ruled out of the test match due to an upper back spasm. With a 1-0 lead, India is chasing their first series win in the rainbow nation. The third and final test will start on January 11 in Cape Town.
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