Heads shake at third SA slump

Senior figures need to take stock too

HISTORY shook its head in disbelief at Aiden Markram after he won the toss in the third one-day international at Newlands yesterday.

By the end of the match, which India won by 124 runs to take a 3-0 lead in the six-match series, many more heads were shaking.

Never mind Murphy’s law, Zuma’s law was rampant in South Africa’s camp: whenever the opportunity to do the wrong thing presented itself, they took it.

That’s not to lay everything that went wrong for the home side at the door of a 23-year-old who played his third ODI and his second as captain.

Instead, South Africans deserve answers from a dressing room full of more senior figures, players and coaches alike, who looked down on the unfolding disappointment.

Maybe South Africa fielded first because India had won the first two games chasing, or because their wrist spinners, Yuzvendra Chahal and Kuldeep Yadav, might struggle in skiddy evening conditions.

Even though the 1pm start meant the match was scheduled to end only 14 minutes after sunset, why tempt fate?

Of the 29 previous day/night ODIs at Newlands, all of which were completed, six had been won by the team who fielded first.

And yet South Africa opted to give India first strike, an invitation they took up with enthusiasm – none more so than Virat Kohli, who smashed an unbeaten 160, his second century of the rubber and the driving force behind his team scoring 303/6.

Neither of South Africa’s new-ball bowlers was Morne Morkel, who has taken 13 wickets in his four ODIs at Newlands at an average of 10.92, an economy rate of 3.8 and a strike rate of 17.2.

Kagiso Rabada, Chris Morris and Andile Phehlukwayo, had between them taken 9/278 in their previous ODIs in Cape Town.

Kagiso Rabada began the match from the Wynberg End with five bristling deliveries that gave Rohit Sharma nowhere to go. The sixth took the edge of the indecisive Sharma’s bat and gave debutant wicket keeper-batsman Heinrich Klaasen a simple first dismissal.

At the Kelvin Grove End, another debutant in the format, Lungi Ngidi, struggled to give of his best.

Shikhar Dhawan hit Ngidi’s first delivery through the covers for four, which set the tone for a wicketless four-over spell that cost 29 runs.

Rabada finished his fine first five overs with 1/15.

Dhawan and Kohli were together, mostly without incident, until the 24th over, when Markram held a leaping catch at short midwicket to end the stand at 140.

The bowler was J P Duminy, who bowled his quota of overs for the fifth time in his 182 ODIs, and for the first time since 2013.

Duminy returned at the fall of the first wicket to score a fluent 51, his first half-century for South Africa across the formats in 24 innings and since last February.

South Africa lost Hashim Amla to the seventh ball of their reply and when Duminy went in the 22nd over they were 95/4 and on the skids on their way to a total of 179.

Chahal and Yadav, took 8/69 between them.

That gives them 21 of the 27 South Africa wickets in the three matches.