It was yet another day of the Indian side dominating the proceedings, led by Rohit Sharma and Mayank Agarwal. Resuming on their overnight score of 202, India pressed on and attacked the spinners. Rohit cruised past 150 while Mayank notched up his maiden Test hundred. Along the way, the duo created several new records.
Mayank and Rohit became the first opening pair to score individual centuries against South Africa. They also became the pair to notch up the highest opening partnership in all India - South Africa Tests surpassing 236 between Gary Kirsten and Andrew Hudson in Kolkata in 1996/97. They breached this mark in the 73rd over when India was at 259 runs for no loss.
Plenty of records tumbled
Not only this, they motored on past 300 and in the process, became the first Indian opening pair to post a 300-run partnership against South Africa. It was the third instance when an Indian opening pair put on a 300-run stand. The record was finally broken when Rohit Sharma was stumped off left-arm spinner Keshav Maharaj for 176. The first wicket, eventually, fell on 317.
Both Rohit and Mayank became the first Indian opening pair to score centuries in their maiden Test on home soil. Mayank and Rohit's twin centuries was the 10th occasion when both Indian openers scored centuries in the same innings. The last time this happened was when Shikhar Dhawan and Murali Vijay achieved the feat against Afghanistan in 2018.
Apart from all the aforementioned feats, Agarwal and Sharma's opening stand is a new record against South Africa for India, surpassing the 218-run partnership between Gautam Gambhir and Virender Sehwag in 2004 at Kanpur.
Speaking at the end of the 1st day's play, Rohit revealed the simple game they adopted while approaching their innings.
"I'm happy with the way things went out in the middle and knew if once we play few overs, it was on us to take the game forward. Because unless you make mistakes in these kind of wickets, you are not going to get out. So, ideally once you are in, the focus is on rotating the strike which we did pretty well and allowed us to bat the way we wanted to," he said.
