Rohit runs into form as India post 274/7
NGIDI PICK OF BOWLERS WITH FOUR-WICKET HAUL
pener Rohit Sharma scored his maiden century on South African soil as India posted 274/7 against the Proteas in the fifth One-Day International at the St. George’s Park here yesterday.
Rohit (115), who notched up his 17th ODI century, hit 11 boundaries and four sixes in his 126-ball innings. It was also his second ton against South Africa, the first one came in 2015 at Kanpur when he scored 150.
The century also helped Rohit become the fourth highest century scorer in ODIs for India, following Sachin Tendulkar (49), Virat Kohli (34) and Sourav Ganguly (22).
For South Africa, Lungisani Ngidi was the pick of the bowlers returning figures of 4/51 while Kagiso Rabada picked up a wicket.
Asked to bat, openers Shikhar Dhawan (34) and Rohit got India off to a decent start before the former was removed by South African pacer Kagiso Rabada while trying to pull a good bouncer which ended straight into the arms
India
S. Dhawan c Phehlukwayo b Rabada 34 R. Sharma c Klaasen b Ngidi 115 V. Kohli run out (Duminy) 36 A. Rahane run out (Morkel) 8 S. Iyer c Klaasen b Ngidi 30 H. Pandya c Klaasen b Ngidi 0 M. Dhoni c Markram b Ngidi 13 B. Kumar not out 19 Kuldeep Yadav not out 2
(b1, lb9, w7) 17 (7 wkts, 50 overs) 274
1-48 (Dhawan), 2-153 (Kohli), 3-176 (Rahane), 4-236 (Sharma), 5-236 (Pandya), 6-238 (Iyer), 7-265 (Dhoni)
Extras Total Fall of wickets: Bowling:
Morkel 10-2-44-0 (1w), Rabada 9-0-58-1 (1w), Ngidi 9-1-51-4 (2w), Phehlukwayo 8-0-34-0 (1w), Duminy 4-0-29-0 (2w), Shamsi 10-0-48-0 J. Bumrah, Y. Chahal South Africa
Did not bat: Toss:
of Andile Phehlukwayo deep square leg.
Struggle before take-off
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Rohit, who struggled to score in the previous ODIs started his innings in similar fashion. However, a boundary and a hit over the fence in back-to-back overs set the momentum for the Mumbai batsman, who kept going from there.
Later, one-down batsman Virat Kohli (36) played a slow 54ball innings. He was involved in a 105-run second wicket stand with Rohit before he was ran out by Jean-Paul Duminy.
Following the dismissal, Ajinkya Rahane (8) again fell victim to Rohit’s mistimed call and was ran out by Morne Morkel.
However, Rohit continued his flow of runs and brought up his century in the 36th over after he got a lucky escape batting on 96 being dropped by Tabraiz Shamsi.
Incoming batsman Shreyas Iyer (30) played a steady innings to keep the flow of runs going. He hit two boundaries in his 37-ball innings and was involved in a 60-run fourth wicket partnership with Rohit.
Rohit was out to pacer Ngidi while trying to play a late cut which was easily taken by the keeper.
Iyer, former Indian captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni (13) and Bhuvneshwar Kumar (19 not out) contributed important runs in the lower order.