Indian Cricket Team Honoured Kallis in Last Test Mach With South Africa

It was a glorious day awash with sunshine in Durban, unlike Friday when cricket fans were greeted by leaden skies, but like in the extended first session yesterday, the batting team lost a cluster of wickets early and made about a hundred runs.

Ravindra Jadeja was getting plenty of bounce to worry the batsmen, and Hashim Amla was bowled for a low score for the third time in three innings as South Africa wobbled at the start of the day

There was only a small crowd in considering it was an early start, but they made plenty of noise as Jacques Kallis walked out to bat in his final Test and was greeted by a guard of honour from India. The emotion of the moment didn't seem to affect Kallis, and he was his usual solid self at the crease, forging a 68-run stand with AB de Villiers to steady the innings. De Villiers had some sparkling strokes, scoring mainly in the V, as he moved along to 39.

India began with Ishant Sharma and Ravindra Jadeja with a ball 20 overs old, perhaps saving Mohammed Shami and Zaheer Khan for spells when the ball was older and reversing. Graeme Smith and Alviro Petersen started in the same brisk manner that they had played yesterday, but the breakthrough came when Smith looked to smash Jadeja over the leg side. It hit high on the bat and swirled to midwicket, where Shikhar Dhawan sprinted back and safely collected the ball as it fell over his shoulder.

Amla's dry spell continued when he played down the wrong line to a Shami delivery to lose his offstump, and off the very next ball, the set Petersen was surprised by the bounce from Jadeja to glove a catch to first slip. Again, it was a sharp catch, with M Vijay diving forward to pouch a low chance. South Africa had lost three wickets for 10 runs and had two new batsmen in the middle.

Jadeja wheeled away, tying up one end and allowing the quicks to rotate. While Kallis was quiet early on, De Villiers took on Jadeja by lofting him straight towards the sightscreen. Kallis was struck on the arm by Zaheer Khan, and took his time gauging the track before opening up with a couple of cracking aerial hits down the ground off Jadeja.

There were few alarms for South Africa after that, as both batsmen played sensibly, going for the shots only when the bad ball was delivered and by lunch South Africa had progressed to 181 for 3.

Source : Cricinfo