Rohit Sharma on Wednesday scored his first Test century as an opener for India in the match against South Africa at the ACA-VDCA Stadium in Visakhapatnam.
Starting the session at 91 for 0, the Indian openers put on 111 runs in the post-lunch session before umpires called for an early break due to bad light and later the heavens opened up, forcing to delay the start of the third session. Rohit was batting on 115 which included twelve fours and five sixes. Meanwhile, his partner Mayank Agarwal was unbeaten on 84 as the Protean bowlers seemed hapless on the ground.
The second session was once again dominated by the Indians, but primarily by India’s new opener — Rohit. Rising to the challenge handed to him by the team management, Rohit stole the show as his cautious approach was overtaken by the free flowing batsmen one is used to seeing in the limited-overs format in the second session.
After playing cautiously at the start of the innings, it was all about punishing not just the bad balls, but also the good ones as the batsman brought up his fourth Test hundred in a session that saw the Indian batsmen take the Proteas bowlers to the cleaners. The partnership between him and Mayank also saw them register India’s first 100-run partnership at the top of the innings since June 2018.
Earlier, in the first hour of the game, both the openers looked to be more cautious in their approach as both Vernon Philander and Kagiso Rabada bowled decent lines. But once the spinners were introduced, both Rohit and Mayank changed gears and dominated the game to keep India well ahead of the visitors.
Brief Scores: India: 202/0 (Rohit 115*, Mayank 84*; Kagiso Rabada 0/35) vs South Africa.
(With inputs from IANS)