Faf du Plessis wins hearts on Twitter for his gesture at Rohit Sharma after the latter's 176

Rohit Sharma made a big comeback to Test cricket in the first match against South Africa in Visakhapatnam by slamming 176 in 244 balls. Opening the innings with Mayank Agarwal who hit a doubleton, Rohit picked his fourth Test hundred which came after almost two years since the third. The Indian openers put up 317 runs to help the hosts post a big total of 502 for 7 before declaring. The visitors were in all sorts of trouble with 39 for 3 at stumps on the second day.

While Rohit’s knock won the Indian supporters’ hearts, South African skipper Faf du Plessis also came up with a gesture after Rohit fell in the 82nd over of the Indian innings. He was stumped by Quinton de Kock off the bowling of left-arm spinner Keshav Maharaj and as he was walking back to the pavilion, Du Plessis came up to him to congratulate him over his knock.

One would have thought that India’s opening pair had made the Proteas toil for over 80 overs before they could taste their first success and hence the skipper would have been relieved to see Rohit’s back. He perhaps did but still came up with a congratulatory gesture and that impressed the cricketing world.

Rohit finally got a game as an opener and he made it count

Rohit has found yet another opportunity to revive his Test career especially after KL Rahul has been dropped because of poor form. The Mumbai batter, who had an incredible World Cup in England with five hundreds, was in the Test squad in the West Indies as well but did not get a game. He finally made it count by slamming the runs at a strike rate of 72 plus.

India are currently placed at the top of the points table in the ICC World Test Championship with 120 points from two matches as they won both the games against the Caribbeans recently. They will pocket 40 points if they can win this Test while a draw will see the two teams sharing 20 points each. Proteas will aim to stage a comeback on Day 3.