Captain Virat Kohli held India’s innings despite a failure of middle-order in the second Test against South Africa at Centurion. Kohli’s unbeaten 85 showed his character in the Test cricket and got among the runs once again.

India started the proceedings with some tight bowling but they had to wait for the first wicket till the first bowling change. South African wickets kept tumbling at the other end, while their skipper Faf du Plessis was scoring some hard-fought runs. Finally, their resistance came to an end at 335, where Ravichandran Ashwin managed his best figures outside Asia and West Indies.

Indian openers Murali Vijay and KL Rahul faced a tricky over before the lunch, but letter threw away his start to Morne Morkel, who grabbed an excellent return catch in his follow through. One ball later, Cheteshwar Pujara had a brain fade as he set off for a single, which wasn’t there at all and threw his wicket.

Kohli and Vijay took India’s innings from there on but getting greedy for a loose delivery took opener with itself. Rohit Sharma yet again failed and Parthiv Patel was no exception in his return match. Meanwhile, Kohli reached to his personal fifty and kept one end tight.

The pendulum of the game is hanging in South Africa’s favor as India finished the day 2 at 183/5 with Hardik Pandya is companying Kohli.