Kolkata, Nov. 16 -- Kagiso Rabada on Friday, Shubman Gill on Saturday - two different injuries have left the two most eminent players of India and South Africa indisposed. But it was an uneven Eden Gardens pitch that tormented both sides more, making fluent scoring impossible and torpedoing the hope sparked by a promising first hour when India were slowly unshackling themselves. Eleven wickets fell on the first day, 15 on the second, and the highest individual score hasn't gone past KL Rahul's 39 in three innings now. South Africa have a lead of 63, but India should wrap it up easily on Sunday even if Gill doesn't come out to bat because of neck spasm. SA skipper Temba Bavuma was waging a lone battle like Rahul did in the first innings, and at times it felt that maybe the difference was all in the mind. This wasn't a raging turner but the pitch was unplayable at times with some balls staying low and some spitting off length. "It did deteriorate quite quickly, which was unexpected," said India bowling coach Morne Morkel later. "But that's the beauty sometimes of playing in the subcontinent. You need to be able to adapt and you need to be able to react to conditions quite quickly." Bavuma did that, cutting out the horizontal shots and keeping the bat close to his body. But the application from the rest of the South Africa batters was not up to the mark. Aiden Markram got out to a half-hearted sweep, completely misreading Ravindra Jadeja's pace on the ball. Tony de Zorzi got to his backfoot trying to work Jadeja through the on side instead of trying to get to the pitch of the ball. Marco Jansen kept going for the slog sweep, connecting a couple and missing the rest, till he got a wafer thin edge that Rahul held on to brilliantly at first slip. There was no intent to give Bavuma as much strike as possible, no technique to bat out a few overs from Jadeja, and no plan at all to survive. Throughout all this, Jadeja's lengths and precision were brilliantly simple and effective. They missed, Jadeja hit four times, racing to 250 wickets in India, only behind Ravichandran Ashwin (383), Anil Kumble (350) and Harbhajan Singh (265). Kuldeep Yadav played his part, taking two wickets, Axar Patel chipped in with one, and while Jasprit Bumrah didn't get a breakthrough in his two spells, he asked enough questions of the batters to keep South Africa guessing. India had a real chance of out-batting SA though. Resuming on the overnight score of 37/1, Rahul and Washington were slowly finding the middle of the bat in a wicketless first hour. Rahul started on a scratchy note, an outside edge off Jansen going through the slip cordon for four in the first over of the day. To Keshav Maharaj, he rocked back and cut hard, beating backward point to score a handsome boundary. Washington too joined in, scoring his first boundary by clipping Jansen through midwicket. But off-spinner Simon Harmer struck soon. First ball after drinks, Harmer bowled a ripper that drew Washington forward in defence before turning away. Next ball was on a similar length, but with the turn sharper, taking the edge of his bat. The situation could have been completely different had Markram at slip held a sharp chance given by Rishabh Pant off Maharaj's bowling when he was on one. But he couldn't react quickly and Pant went on the rampage, scoring 27 at better than run a ball before being bounced out by Corbin Bosch with a clever delivery. Rahul's vigil had ended by then, having edged a big turner from Maharaj on the back foot for Markram to take a good low catch. Jadeja was struck leg before and Dhruv Jurel was brilliantly caught and bowled by Harmer, his haul of 4/30 proving key to keeping India's lead to 30 runs....