Was the India-South Africa Test in Cape Town really the shortest of all time?
And has any team had a worse collapse than India did in their first innings?
South Africa's recent match against India in Cape Town lasted just 642 legal balls, which is indeed the shortest on record among Tests with a positive result. The previous-shortest, at 656, was a strange encounter in Melbourne in 1931-32, most of which took place on a badly rain-affected pitch - what used to be known in Australia as "a sticky dog".
The short answer is no: India's slide at Newlands was the first time a team had ever lost six wickets for no runs in a Test. There had previously been four collapses of five for nought. In one of those, against Pakistan in Rawalpindi in 1964-65, New Zealand lost six for one (the previous record) and seven for two in lurching from 57 for 2 to 59 for 9.
When he was out for 106, Aiden Markram had made 65.43% of South Africa's runs, which would have placed him third on the list of the highest percentages of a completed Test innings, which is still headed by the Australian Charles Bannerman's 67.34% (165 retired hurt out of a total of 245) in the very first Test of all, against England in Melbourne in 1876-77.
South Africa's rapid decline to 55 all out - the lowest total against India in any Test, undercutting New Zealand's 62 in Mumbai in 2021-22 - was the eighth time a team has been bowled out before lunch on the first day of a Test match.
You're right that the next-highest score after Aiden Markram's 106 in Cape Town was 12, by his opening partner Dean Elgar. That was indeed a record: previously the second-highest score in a Test innings in which someone scored a century was 13, also for South Africa, by Gary Kirsten and Mark Boucher against Sri Lanka in Centurion in 1997-98, in an innings in which Daryll Cullinan made 103. And when the underrated Australian Graham Yallop made 121 against England in Sydney in 1978-79, the next-highest score was Kim Hughes' 16.
Steven Lynch is the editor of the updated edition of Wisden on the Ashes