India had as many as ten right-handers in their batting line-up, neither of Shikhar Dhawan and Rishabh Pant was present - and Maharaj and Muthusamy, despite the latter being on debut, were expected to take the ball away from all of them. But by the time Maharaj found a breakthrough in the first innings, Rohit Sharma - in his maiden outing as Test opener - had smashed 176 as all Maharaj could manage was 3 for 189. Muthusamy, starting in India, bowled only fifteen overs but had Virat Kohli to show as his first Test wicket. Meanwhile, Vernon Philander and Piedt struck only once - the off-spinner went at over five an over and Kagiso Rabada remained wicketless in 24 overs despite controlling the run rate.

But despite India raking up 502, South Africa's batsmen showed the stomach for a fight after being 63 for 4. Dean Elgar and Faf du Plessis first joined hands for a partnership of 115 - which was broken when du Plessis was caught at an unnoticed leg slip - before Elgar found another able partner in Quinton de Kock, with whom he shared a stand of 164. Overall, Elgar’s 160 and de Kock's 111 rounded off an extremely pleasing performance with the bat, which meant India was only 71 ahead.

That left the visitors with a sniff of saving themselves from defeat only for Rohit to blast another century. Just like Rohit's journey with the bat, the South African bowlers' story remained the same in the second innings. The spinners were either too full or too short, allowing Rohit all the freedom to swing his arms against length balls or pull with power to half-trackers.

Not only Rohit, who consistently found the fence in his second century of the match, innings of 127 featuring 10 fours and 7 sixes but also Cheteshwar Pujara was allowed to lose after a nervous start. Sitting on a shaky 8 off 62 balls at one stage, Pujara first found some luck as de Kock failed to gather a turning ball from Piedt to have him stumped before making South Africa pay with six boundaries against spin in the next three overs. Those were all a combination of shots resulting from gifts from Maharaj and Piedt, who at times, overcompensated for their mistakes, even allowing him to hammer two sixes over mid-wicket before finally being dismissed on 81 off 148 balls.

Yet again, the spinners could neither keep the runs in check nor take regular wickets; and while the pacers were again able to control runs, both Philander and Rabada hardly threatened the outside edges with their occasional swing. But du Plessis, speaking at the post-match press conference after the 203-run defeat, said India's momentum made them difficult to stop.

"It was difficult to try and slow the game down. We were bowling a lot of spin, so the pace of play was really fast. And when you've got momentum, which they had at that stage, it just felt like it was really difficult to stop".