India, again, was undone by South Africa’s pace battery on the first day of Johannesburg Test. After winning the toss, India opted to bat first and their first innings got concluded on 187 inside 80 overs. If you ignore Virat Kohli and Cheteshwar Pujara’s fifties, you will feel pity for this Indian batting line-up.

While Kohli’s 54 were stroke-filled, Pujara took 54 balls to open his count of runs. India’s number three scored 50 in 179 balls and ignored everything, which was thrown in his direction by South African pacers.

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After such resisting efforts, Pujara admitted that it was one of the toughest batting conditions in his entire career. “It was one of the toughest pitches I have batted on and I really had to work hard to score some runs. To be honest, I think we batted well. With the number of runs we have on the board, we think we can bowl them out for less,” he said after stumps of day one.

“There was a lot of deviation … as the game progresses it will get harder to bat on.”

However, he feels that on such spicy surface, 187 are as good as 300 on any other pitch and looked very optimistic about Team India’s chances in this third Test.

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“I never felt in on this pitch. If we bowl well, we have a very good chance. It’s as good as scoring 300 on any normal pitch. Our bowlers are used to bowling better lengths than the South Africans did,” he concluded.

South Africa was off to a shaky start as they lost their opener Aiden Markram before the end of day’s play.