Finally the much awaited Test series has undergone in Cape Town’s picturesque stadium. And oh boy! What a day it was between South Africa and India as we saw as many as 13 wickets falling on the opening day of the series.

Both teams put selection dilemmas on a side and picked their best eleven for the game, which gave Jasprit Bumrah his maiden Test cap and Rohit Sharma selected ahead of Ajinkya Rahane. All the predictions about Dale Steyn went wrong as he, too, got a chance to make a comeback. South Africa won the toss before Faf du Plessis put his batsmen onto a green-top wicket.

Bhuvneshwar Kumar started pretty well as removed first three wickets in his three overs, which reduced hosts to 12/3. That is when Faf joined his childhood friend AB de Villiers in the middle and both batsmen steadied the ship for once but a 114-run stand was never enough to put your side in the commanding position and both fell cheaply after respective fifties. Quinton de Kock and Vernon Philander played stroke-filled cameos and took South Africa to 285 all-out.

Bhuvi was India’s best bowler with a four-fer but Bumrah was with the biggest wicket of De Villiers as his first Test scalp. Mohammad Shami and Hardik Pandya managed one wicket each while Ravichandran Ashwin removed the tail with his variations.

However, the story was not completed yet as Indian batsmen had to face a litmus test of 14 crucial overs and they failed miserably. After not allowing anything star-studded SA pace battery in first four overs, India lost three big wickets in the next four, that too Captain Kohli was one of them. No offense against South African bowling line-up, but it was the poor shot selection by batsmen which left India wounded at the end of the day.  Cheteshwar Pujara and Rohit Sharma are the overnight batsmen, who will try to heal these wounds from 28/3.