India's tryst with fourth-innings collapses in 2018

#2 South Africa vs India, Centurion, 2018

Pujara was run-out twice at Centurion

Trailing 0-1 in the series, one expected India's batsmen to step-up on the driest of the pitches that South Africa could offer; the Supersport Park, Centurion. But for starters what did they do, they didn't recall Ajinkya Rahane and instead dropped their best player of the Cape Town Test - Bhuvneshwar Kumar.

South Africa batted first and on a beautiful batting track against an attack missing its best bowler from the previous game piled on 335 thanks to Aiden Markram's 94 and Hashim Amla's gritty 82.

In reply, India scored 307 all out, but that does not tell the complete story of their innings. Out of 307, Virat Kohli scored 153 with the next best contribution coming from the bat of Murali Vijay (46). Hardik Pandya's disgraceful run-out came against run-of-play when he and Virat had put on 45 runs and were looking set for a match-defining partnership was a key moment in India's innings as Kohli fell deprived of support from the other end.

Mohammed Shami (4-49) and Jasprit Bumrah (3-70) kept the Proteas to 258 all-out in the second innings to set India 286 runs to win and level the 3-match series,

India's fourth innings was summed up by Cheteshwar Pujara's second run-out of the game as debutant Lungisani Ngidi claimed 6-39 including the price wicket of Virat Kohli (5) to bowl the visitors out for an abysmal 151; 135 runs adrift of the target.