A fifer in 4th innings of Test, Mohammed Shami joins the elite list of bowlers

Shami, who went wicketless in South Africa's first innings, emerged to be South Africa's biggest tormentor in the fourth innings of the Test as he picked up five wickets for 35 runs to skittle out the visitors for paltry 191 before tea break and wrapped things up in India's favour.

Visakhapatnam: On a fifth-day pitch at the ACA-VDCA stadium, riddled with cracks, speed demon Mohammed Shami produced an exemplary spell of fast bowling as he wrecked havoc on South Africa batting line-up to earn India a massive 203 runs win in the first Test of the three-match Freedom series here on Sunday.

Shami, who went wicketless in South Africa's first innings, emerged to be visitors' biggest tormentor in the fourth innings of the Test as he picked up five wickets for 35 runs to skittle out the visitors for paltry 191 before tea break and wrapped things up in India's favour. On a typical sub-continent pitch, tailor-made for spinners, Shami's spell was a rare sight to watch.

In the process, Shami became only the fifth Indian pacer to take five wickets in the fourth innings of a Test match in India. Before Shami, Javagal Srinath achieved the feat way back in 1996 against the same opponent in Ahmedabad. The Mysore Express finished the proceeding with a 6-wicket haul for 21 runs.

In 1981 Mumbai Test against England, Kapil Dev and Madan Lal picked up five wickets each in the fourth innings to help India win.

Amongst them, Karsan Ghavri is the first Indian pacer to achieve this rare feat. In 1977 Mumbai Test, medium-pacer Ghavri picked up five wickets for 33 runs against England. However, the match ended in a draw.

On Sunday, Shami's top order victims were Temba Bavuma, skipper Faf du Plessis and first-innings centurion Quinton de Kock, and he castled all of them.

The Kolkata pacer eventually made it to four out of five uprooting stumps of Dane Piedt.

After the trio's dismissal, lower-order batsman Piedt tried to salvage the Proteas' innings during his gritty 56 off 107 balls.

Mohammed Shami celebrates with teammates after taking a wicket.

But his resistance came to end when Shami pierced through his stumps to bring India inch closer to the victory. The delivery Shami produced to get Piedt's wicket was one gem sort of a ball.

Poses for photo with the broken stump

With Piedt and Test debutante Senuran Muthuswamy amassed 91 runs for the ninth wicket Shami was brought back into the attack after a brief rest.

The burly pacer bowled a fullish delivery that invited Piedt to play a drive shot, but he missed the length and the delivery eventually shattered his stumps. Later, it was found that one of the stumps was broken and the BCCI put up an image of Shami posing with it at the end of the day's proceedings on their social media page.

The right-arm paceman completed his fifth career fifer taking the wicket of Kagiso Rabada. Out of his five wickets, Rabada was the only batsman who was caught behind the stumps while the rest were clean bowled.