South Africa gained some momentum after a poor day in the field to give themselves some hope of saving this test match.

Starting the day at 266/9, Wayne Parnell and Morne Morkel added some valuable late runs before the South African innings ended on 296.

Virender Sehwag then punished the South African bowling all over the park, taking the attack to Dale Steyn and Morne Morkel. He was especially severe on anything wide, and played the square drive and cut to perfection. With a rollicking run rate, the Proteas were under immense pressure.

The second run out of the match saw Gautam Gambhir depart and Murali Vijay did not last long either.

Enter Sachin Tendulkar and together with Sehwag they produced a 249 run third wicket partnership. Sehwag kept the momentum going with boundaries whenever South Africa looked to be bringing the run rate down, whilst Tendulkar was the more cautious and orthodox, but still produced a class innings to score his 47th test century.

What Sehwag did was to unsettle the South African bowlers and ensure India gained the momentum. The fact they scored at 4.5 runs to the over was incredible.

Paul Harris was found wanting trying to tie an end up with negative leg side bowling, and was wided 12 times. While it is a tactic that has it’s place, Harris has to be adaptable, and if batsmen are on top of that theory, he has to try something different.

South Africa did end the day with a late flurry of 3 wickets for 11 runs, including Sehwag for 165, Tendulkar for 106 and Badrinath for 1. India will resume at 342/5, an overall lead of 46 runs.

Laxman and Dhoni are the only recognised batsmen left, so South Africa will be hoping for a quick end to the Indian innings, limit the lead to less than 100 and then hope to set India a challenging 4th innings target.

South African coach Corrie van Zyl rued the fact his bowlers had lacked discipline and did not stick to the gameplan. Although he did acknowledge the genius of Sehwag had made life difficult!

“It is unsettling to everybody. The fact that he (Sehwag) scores so quickly and gets the crowd behind him, so all of that is unsettling. Those last three wickets, out of which two were really big, have set us up for a good day tomorrow,” van Zyl said.