Indian spinners raised visions of victory with twin strikes in the post-lunch session even as South African batsmen, led by the talismanic AB de Villiers, carried on with their match-saving bid, reaching 136/5 at tea on the final day of the fourth cricket Test here today.
At the tea break, de Villiers, as if batting for his life, blocked his way to an unbeaten 43 off 296 balls as South Africa now have to play only one more session with five wickets in hand in order to draw the Test match. He has wicketkeeper-batsman Dane Vilas (13 batting) for company.
In the post lunch session, Faf Du Plessis' (10 from 97 balls) resistance ended when Ravindra Jadeja bowled an armer which the right-hander intended to play for the turn. It hit plumb in-front much to the delight of Jadeja and his team-mates.
India's most successful bowler in the series Ravichandran Ashwin got his 30th victim when JP Duminy (0) was caught dead plumb on the backfoot after having played a dozen of deliveries.
The Proteas, who continued with their 'Blockathon', added only 21 runs in the first session of the final day consuming another 35 overs while the post-lunch session produced 42 runs in 31 overs.
With a session left, South Africa are inching towards one of their most creditable draws in Test history.
While the pitch made it easier for the South Africans but no credit should be snatched away from the world's current best batsman de Villiers, who showed that a class player can change and adapt his game according to the situations. It seems de Villiers did have only one thing in mind -- defend dourly and destroy the opposition's confidence.
There were times when the odd boundary was hit and the players carried out the formality of picking the ball from the boundary and throwing it back to the bowler.
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In the morning session, Jadeja ended Hashim Amla's dogged vigil with a beautiful delivery but de Villiers frustrated the Indian bowlers no end.
Amla faced 244 balls for his 'epic' 25 before Jadeja bowled him with one that drifted in and then straightened to knock the off-stump.
If Amla was not enough, in came Du Plessis, who surpassed his skipper's South African record, set yesterday, of playing 46 dot balls before opening account.
Du Plessis played 52 dots before taking a single of the 53rd delivery. He, in fact, also surpassed Grant Flower (51 balls vs New Zealand in 2000) to become the third slowest player of all time to open his account.
Du Plessis has done this kind of defending earlier in Adelaide (2012) when he batted close to eight hours (7 hours and 46 minutes) to score 110 and denied the Aussies what looked like an inevitable win. And his partner in crime was none other than 'ABD' who had played 220 balls for his 33 in that particular match.
Amla's strike-rate of 10.44 might have put everyone to sleep but his was a perfect example of how to save a Test match from a miraculously hopeless position.
Amla's innings might set future templates on how to save a match as the art of drawing a Test match has become virtually extinct.
Obviously, the drab Kotla wicket which became literally lifeless on the final morning did help but it is never easy to save a Test match by batting out more than 160 overs.
Such was the mindset of South African batsmen that Jadeja has now bowled 33 maiden overs with his figures reading 46-33-26-2.
Ashwin has 3/58 from 35 overs having bowled 25 maidens. There was the odd good ball like the one that got Amla but both the Indian spinners' limitations on slightly unhelpful pitch was thoroughly exposed.
Ashwin went back to his old habit of trying too many variations without much success. When the pacers bowled, it did not carry to keeper.
