Team India opening pair on the South Africa tour, KL Rahul and Mayank Agarwal achieved a huge record on the first day of the third Test at Newlands in Cape Town. Both Rahul and Mayank played out the first burst from Proteas pacers Kagiso Rabada and Duanne Olivier but got out in quick succession, soon after.

The duo shared a partnership of 31 runs before Olivier struck with the big scalp of Rahul. With this, Rahul and Mayank became the first opening pair for India to aggregate over 200 partnership runs in South Africa. Rahul-Mayank with an aggregate of 220 runs surpassed former duo, Virender Sehwag and Gautam Gambhir’s tally of 184 runs as an opening pair in the rainbow nation.

Former India opener Wasim Jaffer and wicket-keeper batsman Dinesh Karthik are in third place with 153 runs. The series got off to a fabulous start for the two openers, Rahul and Mayank when they combined for a 117-run stand on the first day of the Boxing Day Test in Centurion, which India eventually won as Rahul went on to complete his 7th Test century.

However, on Tuesday both couldn’t stay for long as Olivier first dismissed Rahul for 12 and Rabada scalped out Mayank in the very next over for 15 as the visitors went from 31/0 to 33/2 in no time.

Cheteshwar Pujara continued in his aggressive vein, from where he left off in the second innings in Johannesburg while returning Virat Kohli took his time initially as the bowlers kept testing him outside the off-stump on the 5th and 6th stump line.

Pujara played some exquisite drives before Marco Jansen set him up and got him out caught behind but Kohli continued. He played some crunching drives through the covers while keeping his defence solid against the balls delivered on the line of off-stump. Ajinkya Rahane too played a couple of lovely shots before Kagiso Rabada induced his outside edge into the hands of the wicket-keeper Kyle Verreynne.