After a 203-run win in the series opener, the Indian cricket team take on South Africa in the second Test of the three-match rubber in Pune starting 10 October. With a 1-0 lead, the hosts will now look to take an unassailable lead in the upcoming tie before heading to Ranchi for the third and final Test.
While Virat Kohli and co – unless forced by any unforeseen injury – are unlikely to change their playing XI, the South Africans might be tempted to drop one among Senuran Muthusamy and Dane Piedt, who were taken to the cleaners by the Indian batsmen.
Here’s a look at previous Test results at the Maharashtra Cricket Association Stadium in Pune.
- India (105 & 107), led by Virat Kohli, had lost the only Test played at this venue – by 333 runs to Australia (260 & 285) in February 2017. The said defeat remains India's second largest in terms of runs in Tests in India – their biggest being by 342 runs to Australia at Nagpur in October 2004.
- After seven consecutive defeats vs India in India, Australia had registered their first win in India. Before their magnificent triumph in Pune, Australia had lost nine successive Tests in Asia – four in India, two to Pakistan in UAE and three in Sri Lanka.
- India's match aggregate of 212 remains their lowest in a Test match on Indian soil.
- The 444 balls faced by India in the aforesaid Test are the least balls faced by them while losing 20 wickets in a home Test.
- Captain Steven Smith was the only centurion in the Test, scoring 109 off 202 balls in the second innings. It was his fifth century in successive Tests against India.
- The top performer in the Test was Australia's slow left-arm orthodox bowler, Steven O'Keefe. He had identical figures in the Test – 6 for 35 & 6 for 35. He was duly rewarded with a Man of the Match award.
- Steve O'Keefe's figures of 12 for 70 are the second best by a visiting bowler on Indian soil behind Ian Botham's 13 for 106 for England at Wankhede Stadium, Mumbai in February 1980. O'Keefe's outstanding performance is the best by an Australian bowler against India in a Test match.
- Lokesh Rahul was the only Indian batsman to post a fifty in the Test – 64 off 97 balls in the first innings.
- Virat Kohli was a failure as a batsman, scoring 0 off two balls and 13 off 37 balls in his two innings. The 13 runs scored by Kohli in the match are the least by him in a Test match on Indian soil when he batted in both innings of a Test match.
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