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[Watch] Kagiso Rabada's wobbled-seam delivery castles a clueless Shreyas Iyer in 1st SA vs IND 2023 Test

Kagiso Rabada bowled a brilliant wobbled-seam delivery to castle Shreyas Iyer's middle stump and break his key partnership with Virat Kohli on Day 1 of the first Test between South Africa and India in Centurion.

On the last ball of the 27th over, Rabada hurled the ball by keeping three-fourths of the seam underneath his fingers. The ball landed on the stitching on a good length and came in sharply. Shreyas was caught hanging back in his crease, his feet didn't move, and the bat just didn't come down in time to protect his stumps.

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Perhaps Shreyas was anticipating a good length off-stump ball because the previous delivery was a full and wide delivery which he crunched off the middle of his bat and was brilliantly stopped at point by substitute fielder Keegan Petersen.

The wicket left India reeling at 92/4. Earlier, the visitors had lost their first three wickets cheaply. Rohit Sharma and Shubman Gill got out to poor shots and Yashasvi Jaiswal lost his wicket to a good ball from Nandre Burger.

Since then, the No. 4 and 5 batters rode a bit of luck and put up a 68-run stand, making use of South Africa's straight lines till Lunch. The hosts immediately showed improvement in that aspect after the first break.


India lose Virat Kohli after Shreyas' wicket, all dependent on lower order and KL Rahul

Plunging deeper in the mud, India lost Kohli (the second-best batter in the country's history to visit South Africa) three overs later. Rabada got him out with an even better ball which pitched on the off-stump and moved away sharply to take the outside edge off his defensive push to the wicketkeeper.

Playing with a shortened batting set-up in Ravindra Jadeja's absence, India now rely heavily on KL Rahul, Ravichandran Ashwin, and the tail of fast bowlers to get the score to at least 200.

Catch the live-action here.

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