Durban, Jan 9: The Indian bowlers set up a hard fought 21-run victory for India against South Africa in the T20 game played in Durban. The match played at the Moses Mabhida Stadium in Durban is the only T20 international being played between the two sides on this tour.
Asked to chase a target of 169, South Africa began well. At one stage, with Morne van Wyk and AB de Villiers at the crease, they looked to be cruising towards the victory target. The two batsmen, who had come together with the score at 31/2, after the fall of Hashim Amla’s (1) and Colin Ingram’s (2) wickets, put on 57 runs for the third wicket in just 4.5 overs. van Wyk also brought up his half-century in the process.
A superb piece of fielding by the Indians then led to AB de Villiers (14) being run-out with the score at 88/3. This led to a mini collapse as starting with JP Duminy (0), the South Africans lost van Wyk (67), David Miller (10) and Robin Peterson (2) in the space of 5 overs. At 120/7, India were firm favourites to win.
Johan Botha and Wayne Parnell hit a few crisp shots, while threatening to pull off an improbable win, but in the end the Indian bowlers held their nerve and brought a close to the hosts’ innings by limiting them to 147/9 in 20 overs
Earlier, MS Dhoni won the toss and elected to bat first saying it is always good to put runs up on the board and put the opposition under pressure. India went into this game without the services of Zaheer Khan, S Sreesanth and Harbhajan Singh, while South Africa did not play Lonwabo Tsotsobe.
India began well, even though they lost Murali Vijay (14) early in their innings. Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli struck a brisk 49-run partnership off 29 deliveries that took India past the 50-run mark. In fact, the two batsmen who set up India’s total were Sharma and Suresh Raina. Sharma helped himself to a quick fire 34-ball 53 (5X4, 2X6), while Raina, coming in to bat after Yuvraj Singh (12) and Yusuf Pathan (6), blitzed his way to a 23-ball 41 (2x4, 3x6). Riding on the innings played by both these batsmen India managed a most competitive total of 168/6 in 20 overs.
Brief Score: India 168/6 (Rohit Sharma 53, Suresh Raina 41, Juan Theron 2/39)beat South Africa 147/9(Morne van Wyk 67, Ashish Nehra 2/22, Yusuf Pathan 2/22) by 21 runs
Man-of-the-Match: Rohit Sharma for his knock of 53 that set up India’s winning total of 168/6.
