Left-arm spinner Jadeja put a clamp on the scoring rate and picked up four for 87 in 37 overs
Jacques Kallis, playing in his final Test match, scored an unbeaten 78
after South Africa lost three wickets in quick succession on the third
day of the second and final Test against India at Kingsmead on Saturday.
South Africa were 299 for five, 35 runs behind India's first innings total of 334, when rain brought an early close
Kallis received a standing ovation from the crowd and a guard of honour
from the Indian players when he walked out to bat after Graeme Smith and
Hashim Amla had been dismissed for 47 and three respectively
Before Kallis faced a ball, Alviro Petersen was caught at slip for 62
off a ball from Ravindra Jadeja which bounced more than Petersen
expected.
Fairly early in his innings, Kallis hit two successive lofted drives for
four off Jadeja but the left-arm spinner, who replaced Ravichandran
Ashwin from the team that played in the drawn Test at Johannesburg, was
never mastered.
Kallis and AB de Villiers (74) shared a fourth
wicket partnership of 127 after South Africa lost three wickets for ten
runs to be wobbling at 113 for three.
Most of the enterprise came
from De Villiers, who continued in a rich vein of form which has taken
him to the top of both the Test and one-day international batting
rankings. He hit nine boundaries in a 117-ball innings.
But after
De Villiers was caught at slip off Jadeja, the scoring rate was brought
down considerably with Kallis taking no chances. It was important from a
team point of view, too, that South Africa secured a first innings
lead.
Kallis and JP Duminy (28) added 58 runs off 176 balls, a scoring rate of
just under two runs an over, as Indian captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni set
defensive fields and refused to take the second new ball, with the
batsmen finding it difficult to be assertive against accurate slow
bowling.
Kallis advanced to a half-century off 131 balls when he cut Jadeja for four shortly after De Villiers was dismissed.
It
was the 103rd time in 166 Tests that Kallis had scored 50 or more, with
44 of those innings converted into centuries. But it was his first Test
half-century in eight innings.
By close of play, Kallis had been
batting for 274 minutes, facing 224 balls and hitting ten fours. He
gave a sharp chance to Shikhar Dhawan at silly mid-off against Jadeja
when he was on 74
Smith and Petersen took their opening partnership to 103 from the
overnight total of 82 but were unable to bat with the freedom they had
displayed on Friday evening.
Jadeja troubled both batsmen before
Smith, on 47, went down the wicket and mistimed an attempted hit over
midwicket. Dhawan ran back and held a good, diving catch.
Amla was bowled by Mohammed Shami for three when an inswinging delivery straightened past his bat and hit the off stump.