Moving away from Shubman Gill-Rohit Sharma partnership to Rohit Sharma-Yashasvi Jaiswal opening pair seemed the ideal choice. With his ability to score quickly, Jaiswal could aid Rohit Sharma for fast starts in Test. But in the SA vs IND 1st Test, the Sharma-Jaiswal pair had the worst opening stand across two innings in South Africa since 1997. In the first innings, the two added 13 and in the second, they could only add 5.
Rohit Sharma, returning to Test fell prey to his nemesis Kagiso Rabad both times. He was dismissed for 5 in the firts innings and then for a duck in the 2nd innings.
Yashasvi Jaiswal scored 17 and 5 and fell to his new Rajasthan Royals teammate Nandre Burger both times.
In fact, in total the two openers have only contributed 27 runs together in SA vs IND 1st Test.
The last time, two Indian openers aggregated less than 27 was back in 2018 in Perth Test in Australia when KL Rahul and Murali Vijay scored just 22 runs in two innings combined.
As for the SA vs IND 1st Test, India are staring at a big defeat after Dean Elgar’s big 185-run knock helped South Africa take a 163-run lead in Centurion.
Then, the Proteas pace attack rattled the top order, reducing India to just 72/4.
