IND vs SA: "Tried To Use All The Skills..." - Kagiso Rabada Expresses Satisfaction After 14th Test Fifer

South African right-arm fast bowler Kagiso Rabada was breathing fire on Day 1 of the 1st Boxing Day Test against India here at the SuperSport Park Stadium in Centurion. He completed his 14th 5-wicket haul in Test cricket to enforce a collapse of the Indian batting line-up and later reasoned that he just used all the skills he has learned in his career.

His captain Temba Bavuma before pulling his hamstring early on in the match had asked Rohit Sharma’s side to bat first on a pitch that looked very unpredictable on the first day. South African bowlers did not let Bavuma down and in fact, they proved his decision to be the right one despite the record of teams batting first having an upper hand in the game.

In the build-up to the 1st Test, India were given good chances of finally being able to win a Test series in South Africa but all of that talk slowed down as soon as the 1st session began. Yashasvi Jaiswal made a quickfire start to the Indian innings by hitting a 4 on the last ball of the first over.

Rohit Sharma too was trying to settle in but that’s when Kagiso Rabada earned the first breakthrough. He first would set up Nandre Burger towards deep fine leg before bowling a bouncer, forcing Rohit to play his favorite pull shot and getting caught for just 5 runs.

Then after Nandre Burger sent Yashasvi Jaiswal and Shubman Gill packing for 17 and 2, Kagiso Rabada got the wicket of the big fish. He completed his brace of wickets by cleaning the stumps of Shreyas Iyer with a low-dipped inswinger to break his partnership with Kohli of 68 runs.

 

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And moments later, he tempted the big fish Virat Kohli to bring his front foot out and play whatever shot he wanted. It worked and Kohli went for the shot but Rabada had bowled an almost unplayable slight out swinger, taking the edge of Kohli’s bat to go straight into Kyle Verreynne’s gloves.

The visitors were in total shock as their best batsman in South African condition was walking out for 38 but the hosts were on cloud nine as their bowlers were being criticized heavily before the series began. Kagiso Rabada who was actually returning from an injury, completed his 14th Red-ball 5-wicket haul by taking the wickets of Ravichandran Ashwin and Shardul Thakur.

Before the start of today’s play, Kagiso Rabada spoke to Cricbuzz about how he was able to pick 5 wickets in his very first match since the 2023 CWC semi-final against Australia. Rabada stated that all he tried to do was to get the ball in the right areas and said he used all the skills he learned during his time off the field.

“I tried to get the ball in a decent area, tried to use all the skills that I’ve picked up. (On recovering from injury) Couldn’t really do much, it had to heal on its own. Just had to do a bit of rehab to try and be active. Kohli and Iyer were playing well, dropped early in the innings and I’m glad those drops weren’t too costly. The wicket looks a bit tricky to bat, we are going to have to bat well. But the first job today is to get the two wickets early.” – said Rabada. 

Kagiso Rabada Praises Nandre Burger’s Intensity

Every South African bowler except Gerald Coetzee was able to take at least 1 wicket on Day 1. But the bowler that impressed the most (other than Rabada) was debutant Nandre Burger who picked up 5 wickets during the ODI series against India.

Burger was the one who removed the dangerous-looking Yashasvi Jaiswal and then Shubman Gill exactly when he was trying to get set. Kagiso Rabada had positive words for Burger and said that his attitude and competitive nature are going to take him a long way.

“He seems to be a fierce competitor, you saw it yesterday with the way he was bowling. I’m very happy for him and wish him many more wickets in his Test career,” Rabada concluded.