India was assaulted by a barrage of top class pace bowling from a blazing Dale Steyn to be reduced to 233 all out in their first innings and 66/2 following on, on another day dominated completely by the South Africans in the first cricket test at Nagpur. Steyn first picked up two wickets with the new ball in the morning session, then was magical with the older, reversing one that got him five, and had enough fuel left in the tank for another in India's second innings. Virender Sehwag was the only batsman who provided any resistance with a remarkably restrained innings of 109.

The day began with the fantastic prospect of watching what could possibly be contemporary cricket's greatest showdowns, the world's best pace bowling attack of Dale Steyn and Morne Morkel versus the opening juggernaut of Virender Sehwag and Gautam Gambhir. As it turned out, the key performers of the day for both sides were the first halves of these duos.

Hashim Amla batted like a rock to register a career-best 253 not out even as veteran Jacques Kallis missed out on a maiden double for the umpteenth time in his long career on a day that saw South Africa declare in a commanding position at 558/6 in the first cricket test against India at Nagpur.

Mentor and protégé started a fresh day with renewed caution, and took their time settling in. In fact Kallis looked nowhere near as brilliant as he was the previous day. This was a fantastic opportunity to notch up a maiden double hundred for one of the greats of the modern game, but Kallis managed to add only 14 to his overnight total of 159, after consuming as many as 61 balls. He fell for 173, inside-edging a quicker one from Harbhajan onto pad and into the hands of Murali Vijay at short leg. Meanwhile, Amla continued to try and force the pace as the Proteas chugged along at a less-than-impressive runrate of 3 per over or thereabouts.

South Africa started off their Indian tour on a very strong note as both Jacques Kallis and Hashim Amla posted commanding tons on Day 1 at the VCA Stadium in Nagpur. The Proteas finished the day well on top of the hosts at 291/2 with Kallis and Amla going strong on159 off 290 (13x4, 2x6) and 115 off 225 (11x4) respectively.

The Indians were on the backfoot before the start of the match itself as VVS Laxman did not recover fully from his finger injury, and his replacement Rohit Sharma managed to deny himself a debut by picking up an injury on the morning of the match. This meant Dhoni was left with only 5 fit specialist batsmen in the squad apart from himself and was forced to go for reserve keeper Wriddhiman Saha. There was rich irony in the two debuts being made as Subramaniam Badrinath got his chance after banging on the door for close to half a decade, and Wriddhiman Saha was gifted the berth b y a freak quirk of fate.

The Proteas' Test squad will defend one of the proudest records in world cricket when they embark on mission India at the magnificent new Nagpur Stadium on Saturday. Their Test record in India is unsurpassed having won four and lost four of their 10 five-day matches on the sub-continent with the other two matches being drawn. Even allowing for the fact that the Test history between the two countries only goes back 18 years it is still a magnificent effort and the Proteas are, in fact, the only visiting side apart from Australia to have won a Test series here in recent times.

There is little doubt that the rivalry between South Africa and India is, with the passage of time, going to become just as fierce (on the field) and committed as those between the Proteas and Australia and England. "We have had some high profile series wins in England and Australia over the last period of time," commented captain Graeme Smith, "and it will be a real feather in our cap if we can add a series win in India to our list."

The series is, of course, taking place against the background of India and South Africa being ranked No. 1 and 2 in the world on the ICC Reliance Mobile Test rankings and the India media has already dubbed it "the World Championship of Cricket" (or WCC for short). What will give the Proteas a lot of confidence is the fact that their previous four Test victories in India have been based on very strong batting performances by the top six backed up by the striking power of the pace bowlers.