Pathan helps India in winning third One Day of series against South Africa
Yousuf Pathan played a brilliant 59 to help India in winning a thriller against http://www.senore.com/Cricket/South-Africa-c757 at Cape Town.
It was a low scoring match in which India were successful in chasing the South African total.
It was the second consecutive match which went down to the wire, but the Indians kept their nerves intact and won the match to take the lead in the series.
South Africa had managed to give a target of 221 to the Indian’s and India in response managed to chase it by the margin of 2 wickets.
Batting first, South Africa started their innings in a less convincing manner and reached 31 runs in the 6th over. Hashim Amla made 16 runs and struck 2 boundaries in it. He was dismissed by Zaheer Khan when he went after a good length ball that
moved in after pitching and Amla ended up in dragging it into his stumps.
Ingram made 10 runs for his side before he was dismissed by Harbhajan off a ball that pitched outside off stump and took an edge to the slip position.
South Africa was 49-2 in the 13th over and it was not the start the Proteas would have wanted.
Graeme Smith played a slow innings of 43 and did not go after the Indian bowling that much.
The South African run rate was not high in the 20th over and the South African batsmen felt the need to improve their run rate in the middle overs. http://www.senore.com/Cricket/AB-de-Villiers-c887 (16), in pursuit of some quick runs, got a top edge off a shot and ended up getting
caught at long off position.
Two overs later India took the prize wicket of Graeme Smith when Smith went for a sweep shot and ended up in giving a catch to first slip. It was the ideal situation for the Indians to apply more pressure on the Proteas and one more wicket would have proved
deadly for the South Africans.
But the middle order responded well for the Proteas and provided a much needed partnership in the middle overs.
http://www.senore.com/Cricket/JP-Duminy-c1742 and F du Plessis contributed a 110 run partnership for the 5th wicket and carried the Proteas into a safe position.
F du Plessis showed a lot of responsibility in his innings and played with a lot of confidence. He placed the balls in the gaps for handy singles and rotated the strike well. He was given good support by Duminy, who batted well for his 52 and drove well
throughout his innings.
Their partnership was broken when F du Plesis was dismissed by Patel for 60 runs. In the next over, India had further success when Duminy was bowled by Zaheer for 52 runs. After Duminy’s wicket, the Indian bowlers became quite pumped up and bowled with
a lot of accuracy to dry the runs flow and dismiss the South Africans for 220 in their innings. Harbhajan was the main star for the Indians as he bowled with a lot of variety and took 2 vital wickets for the Proteas.
India started their innings in a slow manner and lost the wicket of http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Dale-c52110 Steyn.
http://www.senore.com/Cricket/India-c750’s start was more like South Africa’s as they did not hit many boundaries in the early overs and their run rate was low in the first 15 overs.
South Africa took the second Indian wicket when M Morkel dismissed the dangerous http://www.senore.com/Cricket/V-Kohli-c2737 for 28 runs. One over later, Morkel struck again for the Proteas when he bowled R Sharma for 23 runs.
It was not the ideal situation for the Indians and the responsibility was now shifted to the Indian middle order to come and play a responsible knock for their team.
The middle order did not deliver much with the bat and Yuvraj Singh (16) and http://www.senore.com/Cricket/MS-Dhoni-c2028 (5) were dismissed without adding much to the Indian total. The real rescue came from S Raina and Y Pathan, who contributed 75 valuable runs for the 6th wicket.
Yousuf Pathan was the real star for the Indians as he batted with a lot of aggression and seriously took the Proteas bowling on.
He was quite harsh on Botha and collected three sixes off his bowling. He did not check his natural style of attacking and scored whenever he got the opportunity. South Africa took the sixth wicket of the match when Raina was caught by De Villiers off the
bowling of Morkel.
Two over’s later, South Africa were successful in getting the crucial wicket of Pathan and left the match open for an interesting end. But Harbhajan Singh rose to the occasion and struck a couple of vital sixes to take India home in the 48th over.
M Morkel bowled a tight spell and took 3 vital wickets. Yousuf Pathan, for his match saving 59, was named Man-of-the-Match.
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