Shamik Chakrabarty in Guwahati
Kuldeep Yadav gave the punchline: “Kolkata ka pitch alag tha, yahan pe pura road tha (the Kolkata pitch was different, we have a highway here).” Maybe, it summed up the collective mood of the Indian team after a day when South Africa made them toil hard and all but slammed the door shut.
Pitch-wise, are India moving from one extreme to the other? The question has to be asked, because if batting was a pain in the neck on the Eden Gardens pitch, on the ACA Stadium surface here in Guwahati, it felt like a walk in the park. Two partnerships became India’s bugbear – an 88-run seventh wicket association between Senuran Muthusamy and Kyle Verreynne followed by a 97-run (107 balls) eighth-wicket stand between Muthusamy and Marco Jansen. The pitch had nothing for the finger spinners, and as Kuldeep pointed out, it didn’t offer any help to his wrist-spin either.
“Personally, I felt yesterday first session, there was a bit of moisture on the wicket, so I got a little bit of turn,” he said at the post-day press conference. “After that, it was very good to bat on. There wasn’t any turn yesterday as well as today. Today was much better to bat because I mean, I hardly got any turn. Me and (Ravindra) Jadeja, even we have been talking about (that).”
On the face of it, Kuldeep was a bit of a let-down today. One expects a wrist-spinner of his quality to make inroads into the lower order, irrespective of the conditions. Of two of his three wickets yesterday, he deceived the batsmen in the air. Today, he wasn’t on top of his game.
Kuldeep, though, doubled down on his assessment of the surface. “It was a very good wicket to bat on, I was just trying to use the angles and trying to beat them in drift and yeah, in pace as well,” he said.
If India lose this Test, they will suffer another home series whitewash, after New Zealand last year. In case of a draw also, the Proteas will secure a series win in India for the first time in 25 years. How is the mood in the dressing room? Do the hosts have a chance to pull off an improbable victory after conceding almost 500 runs in the second innings?
Kuldeep chose to stick to the moment. “First of all, we just batted for like six overs, so now we have to bat really well tomorrow, and then we will see,” he said. “Every session is very important. We will take it by session and as of now, we aren’t thinking too much about Day 4 or Day 5. You know you have to bat well and if you bat for five sessions, we will be in a good position to decide what to do next.”
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🚨Ind vs SA: Day 2 Guwahati Test.
A Wrap up on the day’s play and a bit on team selection for the upcoming ODIs against South Africa.@FoodnWellness #IndvsSA @debasissen @shamik100 pic.twitter.com/lGkzE2jNzL
— RevSportz Global (@RevSportzGlobal) November 23, 2025