South Africa batter Keegan Petersen rates the Indian pace attack as the best ever he faced in his whole career. Petersen (72) top-scored in the first innings for South Africa as the hosts bowed out for 210, falling short of 13 to India’s first innings total.
On the second day of the decider, Jasprit Bumrah & Co. again put up an exhibition of fast bowling as South African batters had to struggle for every run. Bumrah picked a fifer while Shami and Umesh returned with 2-wickets each. On the other side, apart from Keegan Petersen, no other protea batters could stand tall against the Indian pace attack.
Keegan Petersen (72) top-scored the South Africa innings
Talking to the media, Keegan Petersen was in awe of the Indian pace attack as he said that they kept coming at you throughout the whole innings and never gave an opportunity to score runs freely.
“It’s (the Indian pace attack) extremely challenging. It’s the most challenging I’ve had in my whole career. You have to be focused and, on your mark, all the time or else they will expose you,” Keegan Petersen said in the post-day press conference.
“They test you in terms of scoring, there’s not much scoring opportunities. They have not given us much. They are arguably one of the best bowling attacks in the world. We knew that coming into the series, it’s been challenging, we just got to deal with it,” he added.
Petersen also added that he enjoyed batting at no.3. Making his test debut last year against West Indies, he scored only two fifties so far but he impressed one and all with composure and elegance. However, Petersen defended Aiden Markram who had a string of low scores in this series.
“I like batting in at number three, I’ve batted there for most of my career. In terms of losing early wickets, we have two high-quality opening batters, they’re just going through a rough time,” Petersen said.
At the close of the second day’s play, India scored 57/2 as Virat Kohli and Cheteshwar Pujara remained unbeaten at the stumps. India will start day-3 with 70 runs lead.
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