Ton up Muthusamy, fiery Jansen put SA in complete control

Guwahati, Nov 23 (PTI) Senuran Muthusamy displayed oodles of patience to score his maiden century in company of a rampaging Marco Jansen as South Africa piled on India's miseries to race towards an insurmountable first innings score of 428 for seven at lunch on day two of the second Test here.

Having consolidated during the wicketless morning session after a 88-run seventh wicket stand with a stodgy Kyle Verreynne (45, 122 balls), Muthusamny (107 batting off 203 balls) didn't change his game even as Jansen (51 batting off 57 balls) belted Kuldeep Yadav (3/110 in 28 overs) and Ravindra Jadeja (2/78 in 26 balls) for as many as four sixes in a stand of 94 runs for the eighth wicket.

Save Jasprit Bumrah (1/63 in 28 overs), who tirelessly bowled and also briefly got the ball to reverse at the start of the second session, none of the Indian bowlers including the three spinners looked like making an impact.

Towards the end, even Bumrah looked exhausted as boundaries came in quick clip and Siraj bowling some mindless bouncers.

Muthusamy was watchful in the morning while hitting the occasional boundaries but chanced his arms in the post tea session taking a cue from Jansen, who just plonked his front-foot and smashed Kuldeep and Jadeja in the arc between straight boundary and long-on.

Muthusamy reached 90s with a six over mid-wicket off Kuldeep and then tickled him fine for a boundary before a push for two offSiraj got him his first Test hundred.

It is not known whether Indian team management and its data analyst had done any homework on Muthusamy, who as recently as second Test in the preceding series against Pakistan scored 89 not out in a winning cause and enjoys an average of 46 plus in the traditional format.

For the record, this was his 10th first-class hundred having scored more than 5000 runs in domestic cricket.

The only success for the Proteas came with Jadeja getting Verreynne stumped but not before he had done his job admirably sticking around for the first two hours.

The Proteas took heavy roller in the morning which indicates that initially it would play well and then quickly start crumbling by the start of the third day.

The Barsapara track became a quintessential 22 yards from the throwback era where it flattened out considerably making India's two finger spinners Washington Sundar and Jadeja look pedestrian through the second morning.

What became a problem for the finger spinners was lack of zip off the surface that made life comfortable for the batters.

Muthusamy defended well on the front-foot and also played some flowing drives.

He did survive by going for DRS when he was adjudged leg before off Jadeja's bowling as the TV replays showed that the ball had touched the gloves. Muthusamy didn't look back after that. PTI KHS KHS BS BS