Hardik Pandya celebrates dismissing South Africa's Aiden Markram on Day Two of first Test in Cape Town on Saturday. Pic/AFP

On the 59th birthday of India's greatest all-rounder, India's 289th cricketer, and not the first or last to be labelled the next Kapil Dev, played the innings of his life to dig India out of a hole that once threatened to swallow them whole. Hardik Pandya, weathering four fast bowlers who were steaming in, wearing several blows on his body, carved a 95-ball 93 to ensure that India's first-innings deficit was reduced to 77.