Guwahati, Nov. 26 -- Second delivery of his first over, Simon Harmer floated the ball above KL Rahul's eyeline. This was an open dare, a challenge to step out and hit him. But the Indian batters rarely do that these days, so Rahul played it from the crease. With the ball dipping on him, the right hander didn't get to the pitch of the ball and tried to turn it to the on side. The ball turned sharply, 6.2 degrees, beat the bat and disturbed the stumps. Harmer took off on a victory lap like Imran Tahir. If there is one dismissal that was to sum up India's spineless batting against spin in this series, this had to be that. South Africa had set India a target of 549 and in reply, India were 27/2 at close on Day 4. Unlike the other games, the broadcasters' camera couldn't find coach Gautam Gambhir looking on intently, with a ball in his hand. He knows that there is no coming back from this. India batting out three sessions to salvage a draw is a tough task. More real look South Africa's chances of getting eight wickets and inflicting on India their second whitewash at home in just over a year after 12 years of home dominance. This is what happens when a team fails to put together a decent, coherent first innings response on a pitch that the visitors have been plundering runs on. On the fifth day, when the pitch is expected to offer the most turn, what else is expected when there is such a woeful lack of application? In fact, this has been the dominant pattern of Indian batsmanship in the era beyond Virat Kohli and Cheteshwar Pujara, a plight that's also most likely to be forgotten as soon as the white-ball tours arrive. Scars of this embarrassment won't heal easily though. The batting woes are well documented by now. Bewildering, however, was how South Africa could freely pile on runs for 70 overs on a pitch that saw India struggling so spectacularly. Ravindra Jadeja took four of the five wickets to fall, becoming the fifth Indian bowler to take 50 wickets against South Africa but the bigger picture of how the rest of the bowling failed to stop the flow of runs can't be ignored. Kuldeep Yadav conceded four runs per over, Jasprit Bumrah not used in short bursts-the lack of plans was apparent from the first session itself. As expected, South Africa made hay. Ryan Rickleton and Aiden Markram set up the base with a 59-run stand but once they lost three wickets for 18 runs, the pace of cricket became a little slower. But if the aim was to demoralise India, South Africa achieved that with a 101-run partnership between Tristan Stubbs and Tony de Zorzi for the fourth wicket. When de Zorzi was dismissed just one run short of a deserved fifty, South Africa were ahead by 466, but the declaration was still not in sight. India's shoulders started to drop slowly, but surely. "If you have 312-315 runs ahead of the game, then any batsman can come and play freely," said Jadeja later. "They're not thinking about spin or bounce, or how the wicket is. But when you're 300 runs behind and you have to go out and play out a day, defend through it and you know you have a 550-run target and you know the ball is turning and bouncing, that plays on the mind more. "End of the day, when you're in a good situation, even if the ball spins. We've also been (in situations like this). Like, from 2012 to 2024, in 12 years we've not lost a series at home. In that time, we've handled these situations well. But that timing was such that we won a lot of tosses and we scored big in the first innings. We've beaten oppositions by innings. It has happened a lot of times." But that isn't happening here. South Africa declared at 2:42 pm, the sight of Tristan Stubbs's stumps being disturbed by Jadeja after missing a slog sweep against a tossed up delivery prompting Bavuma to signal that India's misery had finally ended. This is only the second time that India have been set a 500-plus target in a home Test. The last time it happened, in 2004, India lost by 342 runs chasing 543 against Australia in Nagpur. Only once since 2000 have India batted out more than 100 overs in the fourth innings-131 overs in Sydney in 2021. Their highest successful fourth innings chase at home? 387 against England in Chennai in 2008. India are up against these colossal numbers when they come to bat again on Wednesday. South Africa delayed their declaration but the need to assure a series win was so absolute that it was understandable on their part. All said and done, India still had to bat a little more than three sessions, something they haven't done in this series. Trust South Africa to exploit that. In came Jansen, softening Yashasvi Jaiswal with a few bouncers before luring him into the cut-he edged it to the wicketkeeper. Rahul bowled, Kuldeep Yadav came out as nightwatchman but once again he showed composure that B Sai Sudharsan could borrow some. Ducking to Jansen, surviving a close leg-before shout of a straighter Harmer delivery, almost dragging Keshav Maharaj on to his stumps, Sudharsan was a bundle of nerves that will keep India on edge going into the last day of this Test....