Ravi Shastri’s grandstanding paid off. On the first day of the first India-South Africa Test on Thursday, the playing surface at the Punjab Cricket Association Stadium in Mohali, generally always with a tinge of green, looked very different: dry with plenty of cracks. Daljit Singh, the curator, could rest easy. Hopefully, no one from the Indian camp would have an expletive-ridden rant at him now.

Other things also seemed to be falling into place. Virat Kohli won the toss and wanted to have a bat. And despite a lazy Shikhar Dhawan dismissal, Cheteshwar Pujara and Murali Vijay were carrying India along steadily.

Then after the 21st over, Hashim Amla, the South African captain, decided to give Dean Elgar a ball.

Dean who?

Not to worry. If India keep batting like this through the series, they will maintain their proud tradition of bestowing fame on players previously unheard of. Remember how the world discovered Moeen Ali after England finished humiliating India last year?

Elgar snares four

But to answer the original question. Dean Elgar is South Africa’s new 28-year-old opener. He is mainly in the side for his batting, or at least that’s what the Proteas might have led us to believe. In his 17 previous Test matches, he’s had a bowl only six times. Even at the first-class level, his bowling figures hardly pass muster – 40 wickets at an average of over 50. Up in the commentary box, Harsha Bhogle joked that Elgar’s list of Test victims included Misbah ul-Haq and Steve Smith, which probably meant that “he could slip in a good one somewhere”.

Elgar did not take long to shut them up. His third ball to Pujara was an arm-ball. Playing for turn, Pujara was completely deceived and was struck plumb in front of the stumps. But this was not a one-off. After Ajinkya Rahane and Vijay had steadied the ship a bit, Amla decided to throw the ball to Elgar again.

What followed were two classical left-arm-spin dismissals.

Ajinka Rahane was sucked into driving at one which tantalisingly looped away from off-stump, only managing a nick to Amla at first slip. But the Wriddhiman Saha dismissal took the cake. Pitched right on middle and leg, Elgar had given the ball enough tweak for it to turn sharply. Saha, looking to smother the turn by patting it towards the on-side, failed to anticipate how much it would turn and tamely edged to Amla again at first slip. Elgar would later return to account for Amit Mishra as well. He finished with figures of 4/22, despite bowling less than all the other South African bowlers. India collapsed to 201, but even more worryingly, lost seven out of their ten wickets to a spin attack that was supposed to be South Africa’s weakest link.

'Be careful what you wish for...'

Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja, however, brought back some of the smiles back, dishing out some exquisite spin-bowling of their own to nip out two South African wickets before the close. Ashwin and Jadeja looked in great form, constantly asking uncomfortable questions of the visitors and reminding South Africa, who finished the day on 28/2 after 20 overs, that their trial against spin had only just started. Despite that though, India’s batting performance should raise a lot of question-marks, especially after their hankering for a turning surface. Ravi Shastri, in particular, would do well to heed this advice: