INDIA CRUSH PROTEAS, ENTER SEMIS
Virat Kohli’s boys crush South Africa by eight wickets in a onesided group B match to seal semifinal berth
Yuvraj Singh and Virat Kohli celebrate India’s 8wicket victory over South Africa in their ICC Champions Trophy quarterfinal at the Oval in London on Sunday. India is likely to face Bangladesh in the semifinal.
LONDON: India kept their composure to strangle a careless South Africa to storm into the ICC Champions Trophy semi-finals with a commanding eight-wicket win at The Oval on Sunday.
South Africa, the world’s No. 1 ODI side, once again failed to lift themselves on a big day. The Proteas lost their last eight wickets for just 51 runs and that left India with a modest 192-run target. When Yuvraj Singh smashed the wining six, India won with 72 balls to spare.
The Indian chase, led by the in-form Shikhar Dhawan (78, 19th fifty) and captain Virat Kohli (76 not out, 41st 50), stuck to its task very well and the defending champions scored their fourth straight Champions Trophy win against the Proteas to set up a semifinal clash with Bangladesh in Birmingham on June 15.
INDIA OFF TO A ROUSING START
India’s chase got off to a rousing start. Rohit Sharma, whose fitness was under the scanner, was given the pinch-hitter’s job on a beautiful deck where the ball came on nicely to the bat.
Sharma, whose hand-eye coordination helps him time the ball well, smashed a six and a four in his 20-ball 12 as India tried to dominate the South African pacers that bowled to an attacking field.
Dhawan and Virat Kohli executed India’s game plan very well – waiting for the loose balls to score.
The field set only made it easier for the batsmen as the duo knitted a blistering 128-run secondwicket stand that left the South Africans gasping for fresh air on a sunny afternoon.
Kohli chose to play second fiddle as Dhawan upped the tempo, played his strokes all around the park and more importantly, punished Imran Tahir’s leg-spin to take the sting out of South Africa’s bowling attack.
Kohli survived a chance at slips when he was dropped by Hashim Amla at slips on 21 but that apart, the Indian captain paced his innings beautifully and gave Dhawan the necessary sup- port to shut the door easily on South Africa.
When a team’s top four batsmen are out due to silly run outs and poor strokes, then it is bound to pinch.
RUINING GOOD START
South Africa hardly looked the world’s No. 1 ODI team when they blew away a good start to be all out for 191 in 44.3 overs.
South Africa lost skipper AB de Villiers and David Miller in a space of six balls as the Proteas ran into big trouble at a stage of the innings when they should have been consolidating.
De Villiers made a good start, freely scoring 16 runs off 12 balls but a poor piece of judgement and superman dive were not enough to save him from a brilliant piece of out-cricket from Hardik Pandya at point.
If that blunder with Faf du Plessis wasn’t enough, Miller was caught in a terrible mix-up that saw both batsmen stranded at the striker’s end.
South Africa made a hash of a commanding 76-run opening wicket stand after India won the toss and decided to field. It was a shame to see two set batsmen gifting away their wickets.
An adventurous Hashim Amla edged Ravichandran Ashwin to skipper MS Dhoni after a 54-ball 35 and indiscretion got the better of Quinton de Kock (53 off 72 balls), too. After surviving an LBW call, De Kock was bowled to sweep a Ravindra Jadeja delivery that was quicker off the wicket.
BHUVI ON A HATTRICK
Jasprit Bumrah’s back-to-back wickets of Chris Morris and Andile Phehlukwayo and Bhuvneshwar Kumar’s back-to-back wickets polished off the tail as JP Duminy was left stranded on a laborious 20 (41 balls).
Kohli rotated his bowlers well and Jadeja once again stood out with his nagging line and length. So much so that not a single boundary was scored off his 10 overs that produced just 39 runs. He was the only bowler not to concede a wide as India gave away 16 extra runs, 10 of them being wides.