The third and final test match between South Africa and India gets under way at Newlands, Cape Town on Tuesday and any winner here will claim the series
The Proteas went into the second test at The Wanderers 1-0 down and very much the underdogs but they came out on top by 7 wickets to force this decider. India were without skipper Virat Kohli and batting first they made just 202 with KL Rahul top scoring with 50 and Marco Jansen took 4 of their wickets with Rabada and Olivier taking 3 a piece.
The Proteas replied with 229 with Keegan Petersen making 62 runs and Bavuma 51and Thakur took 7 wickets to leave the game finely balanced.
India's second innings of 266 (Rahane 58, Pujara 53) set up a tense finale and the Proteas more than held their nerve with Dean Elgar's unbeaten 96 earning him the Man of the Match award.
Kohli is expected to return at Newlands and this was how the teams lined up at The Wanderers.
South Africa: Dean Elgar (c), Aiden Markram, Keegan Petersen, Rassie van der Dussen, Temba Bavuma, Kyle Verreynne (wk), Marco Jansen, Kagiso Rabada, Keshav Maharaj, Duanne Olivier, Lungi Ngidi
India: KL Rahul (c), Mayank Agarwal, Cheteshwar Pujara, Ajinkya Rahane, Hanuma Vihari, Rishabh Pant (wk), Ravichandran Ashwin, Shardul Thakur, Mohammed Shami, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Siraj
First Test Wrap
The first test was staged at Centurion and India won it by 113 runs. KL Rahul made 123 of India's bat first total of 327 and Ngidi took 6 wickets. The Proteas reply finished on 197 with Bavuma (52) the only batsman to make a half century and Shami took 5 wickets.
India were in control but there was a fightback of sorts as they were bowled out for 174 in their second knock with Jansen and Rabada both taking 4 wickets. The Proteas were still faced with a huge task in their second innings and although Elgar made 77 they were bowled out for 191 with Bumrah and Shami claiming 3 wickets a piece.
Newlands, Cape Town
Over the course of the last decade the Proteas have won 7, lost 2 and drawn 1 of 10 test matches at this venue.
The only defeats came against Australia back in 2014 and in the most recent test against England in Jan 2020 when England made 269 and 391/8d to the Proteas
223 and 248.
India were here in January 2018 and the Proteas won by 72 runs, scoring 286 and 130 to India's 209 and 135
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The Betting - 3rd Test Match
At the time of writing South Africa are 13/8 to win the match with the draw at 11/4 and India are favourites at 11/10
Dean Elgar is 9/4 to top score for the Proteas in the first innings and Virat Kohli is 5/2 to do likewise for India.
Note all prices are correct at the time of writing but are subject to change
The Verdict
Kohli's return would be an obvious bonus for India who's batting was well below par in Johannesburg but I'm still open minded about the match result and will focus on individual play markets.
Shardal Thakur's 1st innings performance in the second test makes his current price (6/4) to take 3 wickets or more in the first innings of the decider attractive enough.
Despite some low scoring tests at Newlands in recent times I can see the wicket been good enough for the top batsman and Kohli's quote of even money to score over 33.5 runs in the first knock doesn't look overly ambitious.
Bets: 1st Innings Wickets Shardul Thakur over 2.5 at 6/4
1st Innings Runs Virat Kohli, over 33.5 at even money
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Note all prices are correct at the time of writing but are subject to change
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