Stuurman is the series’ joint top wicket-taker, alongside India’s Navdeep Saini, with seven wickets from two games following an impressive display with the ball in last week’s drawn game, returning with match figures of 7/99 as South Africa remain in the hunt for a home series win.

“I am happy with my performance, happy with the way that I could contribute towards the team performance,” the Warriors seamer said.

“With the game going four days, it showed that it was a great one and overall, if we think back and we are very hard on ourselves, in certain areas we can improve as a unit, with bat and ball

“I was happy to contribute and happy to have gotten a few wickets, and looking forward to the next game,” he added.

In the hard-fought draw in the second game, where lower-order interventions were required from the home side to put up noteworthy scores, Stuurman provided crucial runs from positions 11 and nine respectively in the batting order, before shining with ball in hand.

The Oudtshoorn-born rising star struck four times in the first innings and followed that up by taking all three Indian wickets to fall in the second innings as the subcontinent visitors were restricted to 155 / 3, chasing 234 on the final day, before bad light brought an end to the contest.

“First of all, it was a good game of cricket, both teams fancied their chances at the end to win this game, on a wicket that assisted the bowlers a little bit more than the first game,” noted Stuurman, 23.

“Our batters showed a lot of fight to get us to a competitive total in the first innings. With the ball, it was important that we strike first, and as a bowling unit we bowled well, and everyone chipped in.

“We had a lot of starts but the batters couldn’t convert, and with the ball, we bowled well in patches. That’s the stuff we take from the game, and going forward into the last game, we will try to rectify.

The third and final unofficial Test will get underway from 10h00 on Monday, 6 December.