What target can India set?

[fineleg]

Sabby, Yes SA may outclass us and win and I am perfectly fine if that happens. They are the stronger and experienced home side. But lets do basics right, catches, not throwing away wickets when batting, ashwin not bowling short. Let SA outclass and win it if they must win.

[saneindian]

Repeat of 1st innings performance would be good. But batting will get tougher with the pitch likely to have uneven bounce.

[ThePhenomenal1]

Ashwin better get good, we need him to do something! Dhawan is his own culrpit, he hardly gets out to good balls but gives it away to decent ones. They showed him talking to india staff, maybe he's working on it. Him and vijay need to play out the new ball and give the rest a good chance. And scoring needs to be a little faster so they don't get bogged down. For india to win they need to get the tail out quickly. Steam in and get them. Then bat for long and get a good total. Hoping for a dhawan freak innings :)

[Ram]

From an historical standpoint three of our most famous wins abroad in the last 10 years came when we defended 300+ targets in the 4th innings - Jo’burg 06/07, Perth 2007/09 and Durban 2011. In two of those instances (Jo’burg & Perth), we defended 400+ targets. But the important point to note here is that during ALL of those chases, the opposition batting unit had some sort of mini-rear guard action after losing early wickets. In fact, apart from the odd miracle at home (Saffies at Ahmedabad in 96, Aussies at home in2004 etc), I cant ever recall us successfully defending sub 220 targets in the 4th innings to win a test match. As a batting unit, South Africans are too good to have another mega middle order collapse like they did in the first innings. A 400+ target gives the fielding captain the luxury of having a couple of substantial batting partnerships and still remain in the game. But given this match situation, that maybe asking too much of our batsmen. At a minimum, we need something close to 300. And that it makes critical for us to bowl the Saffies out without them getting ahead of us even slightly.

[Old guy]

Sabby, Yes SA may outclass us and win and I am perfectly fine if that happens. They are the stronger and experienced home side. But lets do basics right, catches, not throwing away wickets when batting, ashwin not bowling short. Let SA outclass and win it if they must win.

Isn't bowling well part of cricket ? And so is fielding well ...basics is what matters and they do basics better than us .. Let's not try to separate these..I sounds good that you just want ur team to win but I am just happy team is doing better than expected or are u really saying that before this match we had chance of winning series ? I will defend them even if we lose now that's the point obviously I would prefer winning but even if we lose we did not lost like before we competed and before this series that's all you or anyone else here wanted :winky:

[GrandMasterSaxy]

With two more days to go, 325-350 should be a good total. But the question is who will score these many runs for India ?

[ruchi49]

i think 300 or 325 will be good total

[NareshK]

Batting in second innings will be a whole lot tougher. In first innings, our batsmen left a lot of deliveries outside off. This was because SA bowlers stuck to that 4th, 5th stump line and let the batsmen make the mistake of fishing outside off but Indian batsmen didnt take the bait. Also because of the bounce and the length which they were bowling, the ball went over the stumps many times. Now there is uneven bounce and SA bowlers have learned to bowl straighter and fuller yesterday which means you need to play lot more. Indian bowlers also bowled much straighter and fuller which is why we got many bowleds and lbws. Batsmen need to be a bit more positive on this track because you are really never in. You can play 100 deliveries but you can still get out from a jaffer. Better to score as many as long as you are there. If you bat 100 balls, at least try to score 60 runs. I will take 200 in second innings. Then its up to the bowlers to defend.

[Switchblade]

Rahane was asked about this he feels that a total of 270-275 will be good for India as S.A has to bat last

[adi B]

240 is more than enough..be it any batting line up in the world,chasing 240+ on this day4 joburg track will be almost impossible..but its a BIG doubt whether india will score even 200 today

[Pagalpanti]

36 is the lead, so we just need to get to 220-230. 250+ on this pitch is going to very very tough + SA's choke ability will come in as well.

[skindia]

73 all out...Target of around 110

[rkt.india]

250 is minimum in 2nd innings. They are far good a batting to fail like that again.

[Pagalpanti]

250 is minimum in 2nd innings. They are far good a batting to fail like that again.

Choke is the key word here. Doesn't matter how good they are, if they r under the pump they'll make it easy for our bowlers for that though like you said our batsman need to put up a decent target 240-260.

[Old guy]

36 is the lead' date=' so we just need to get to 220-230. 250+ on this pitch is going to very very tough + SA's choke ability will come in as well.[/quote'] They don't choke in tests and smith is Brahman in 4 th innings

[Pagalpanti]

They don't choke in tests and smith is Brahman in 4 th innings

Kolkata test.. Have faith in their choke ability, its never too far :winky:

[Laaloo]

250 is minimum in 2nd innings. They are far good a batting to fail like that again.

Kalllis is out of form Fafdu is crap Peterson is crap Duminy is hit and miss stop overrating them. 275+ should be enough

[velu]

Kalllis is out of form Fafdu is crap Peterson is crap Duminy is hit and miss stop overrating them. 275+ should be enough

and our bowlers are good enough to make chris martin a batting allrounder :giggle:

[ShebbySB]

73 all out...Target of around 110

:hysterical::hysterical::hysterical::hysterical::hysterical::hysterical::hysterical::hysterical::hysterical::hysterical::hysterical:

[ShebbySB]

India will score 300+ & will set a target around 340-350.We've to take 9 SA wickets....we'll win this one.