AB de Villiers after his double century on Friday. (PTI)

Ahmedabad: AB de Villiers’s maiden double hundred and Jacques Kallis’s 30th century left Team India staring at a huge defeat in the second Test of the Future Cup on Friday.

South Africa took complete control of the match at the Motera, ending Day II at 494 for seven and storming into a lead of winning proportion — 418. Barring a divine intervention, the visitors should land in Kanpur with a 1-0 advantage in their kitty.

The sky suddenly broke open in the final session, forcing the day’s play to be called off an hour before scheduled close, but Anil Kumble & Co. were by then severely exposed to the possibility of their unbeaten record at the Motera since losing the first match (against the West Indies in 1983) getting a serious beating. The statistics read three wins and four draws for the hosts here, apart from that defeat.

Kallis (132) promoted himself to the fifth position on the list of leading century makers, surpassing Don Bradman’s tally of 29. But De Villiers remained the thorn in Team India’s flesh, undefeated on 217, which made him the author of South Africa’s highest individual score against India.

Throughout the day, India’s reply to the uphill task, once they were out for 76 inside the first session of the opening day was limited to claiming just three wickets against South Africa’s record run-feast. The fifth-wicket alliance between De Villiers and Kallis culminated in the 256-run stand, also the Africans’ highest stand in any wicket against the hosts.

If that was not enough, misfortune, couple of debatable decisions and poor fielding conspired to make India’s cup of woes full. Sreesanth, who posed a few questions to both the unbeaten batsmen with the second new ball (taken after 81.2 overs), was denied by umpire Billy Doctrove when a strong leg-before appeal against Kallis was turned down. Kallis was lucky again on 61 as one rising delivery from Harbhajan broke his defence and trickled down to the stumps but it didn’t have enough power to dislodge the bails.

In his very next over, Harbhajan missed De Villiers’s off-stump by a whisker in what could be the solitary moment of nervousness in the double centurion’s otherwise sensational eight-hour-long vigil at the crease.

Irfan Pathan was pedestrian to say the least, Rudra Pratap Singh seemed to have left his rhythm back in Australia and with Kumble not at his best, Harbhajan and Sreesanth had to bear a heavy burden on their shoulders.

De Villiers’s philosophy of life is essentially based on a quote by T.E. Lawrence, the former British soldier and author who was immortalised in the film Lawrence of Arabia.

During the school-leaving examinations, De Villiers and a group of his classmates planned to bury a time capsule on the adjoining ground. In it, they were asked to put the most valuable items of their lives which would then be retrieved after 10 years during a reunion in 2012.

One of De Villiers’s important items was a piece of paper containing a few words by Lawrence: “All people dream, but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity. But the dreamers of the day are dangerous, for they may act their dreams with open eyes, to make it possible.”

De Villiers — a naturally born sportsman who occasionally tries his hand in golf, rugby and tennis — was indeed living his dream at the Motera and his supreme ability to control affairs should be an eye-opener for the Indians in the days to come.

He blossomed after a sedate start and frustrated the hosts, altering restraint with an abundance of strokeplay. Two strokes in particular — the first a sumptuous straight-drive off R.P. Singh and the other a cheeky scoop to fine-leg boundary off Sourav Ganguly which brought up his century — bore ample testimony of his confidence.

Kallis, on the other hand, built a workmanlike innings with his trademark nudges and flicks.

The partnership was eventually broken about half an hour before teawhen Kallis was torn between playing and leaving a Sreesanth delivery and ended up exposing his off-stump. By that time, South Africa’s previous highest stand against India — 236 that current coach Gary Kirsten and Andrew Hudson stitched at the Eden in 1996-97 — had long been reduced into a thing of the past.

Mark Boucher (21) was the next to go, but not before producing a useful 66-run stand. De Villiers surpassed his previous best — 178 against the West Indies in Bridgetown three years ago — with a huge six which left the awe-struck Harbhajan watch the ball sail onto the roof of the stands.

He soon receded Herschelle Gibbs’s 196 (in Port Elizabeth in 2002) in the background, nudging Harbhajan for a single to achieve South Africa’s highest knock against India and two balls later, reached his maiden double century by dint of a sweetly timed boundary through extra-cover.

As De Villiers continued enjoying his dream, Kumble & Co. gradually slipped into a nightmare.