Wriddhiman Saha walked off the field following a minor finger injury. Rishabh Pant replaced him to keep wicket at Ranchi.
Pant replaces Saha
During South Africa’s second innings, in the 26th over Wriddhiman Saha, the wicketkeeper of Indian cricket team was hit on his fingertips. A delivery from Ravichandran Ashwin was responsible for the same. Saha chose to walk off the field so that the physio could examine the issue. He was struck directly on his fingertips and so did not take any further risk. India’s stand-in wicketkeeper Rishabh Pant joined the team in the middle with his gloves on yet again.
BCCI on their official Twitter handle informed about the update. They wrote, “UPDATE – Wriddhiman Saha has been replaced by Rishabh Pant who has taken a blow right on the end of the gloves.”
Wriddhiman Saha already was out for a few days from cricket because of his injury. Once he was fit, and because of Pant’s failure in the limited-overs, Virat Kohli chose to prefer Saha over Pant. Moreover, the captain and coach went on record to call him as the world’s best keeper currently. This was a great chance of a comeback for Wriddhiman Saha and he did to serve the team. At this point, when Saha is out of the field, Pant could utilize this opportunity to prove himself once again.
Pant, the second substitute of day
This also made Pant the second substitute for the last session of the day. At first, Dean Elgar was retired hurt and replaced by Theunis de Bruyn. He was struck on his head by a furious delivery from Umesh Yadav and ruled out of the match. Theunis was taken to the team as a concussion substitute.
South Africa once again looked clueless in front of India’s bowling attack. They were all out for just 162 runs in the first innings and were enforced follow on by Kohli. Then the second innings turned out to be even more painful for the tourists as they were reduced to 132/8 within 46th over at the stumps on Day 3.
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