http://www.senore.com/Cricket/South-Africa-c757 level one-day series against India
South Africa levelled the one-day series against http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Lewis-c72807 (D/L) method.
Graeme Smith’s luck with the toss continued, as he won it in yesterday’s match as well, and decided to bat first in batting friendly conditions. The South African innings got off to a very cautious start as the hosts scored just 10 runs in the first five
overs.
After some defensive batting, the Proteas run-machine, Hashim Amla started playing his strokes freely and helped the team to improve the run-rate.
Smith wasn’t as comfortable as Amla was at the crease, and he rarely hit the ball with the middle of his bat during his struggling knock of 18 runs off 30 balls. When Smith finally managed to hit one with the meaty part of his bat, it went straight to Harbhajan
Singh at mid-off.
The surprise inclusion in the team, http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Morne-van-Wyk-c2025 then joined Amla at the crease, and the pair took the score over 100. All of the sudden, the home team collapsed and from 106 for the loss of one wicket, they slumped to 118 for 5.
The collapse started after the wicket of van Wyk. After that, Amla was run-out while attempting a suicidal run. He scored 64 runs and was looking threatening for the Indian bowlers.
http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Faf-du-Plessis-c1427 were also out early in their innings and all of a sudden, the Proteas looked like they would struggle to get past 150 runs.
However, http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Johan-Botha-c67173 rescued their team from trouble. The pair scored a 70-run partnership before Botha was stumped for 44. Robin Peterson then helped Duminy take the score over 200 and both batsmen managed yet another half-century stand for
their team.
Peterson was the third man to be run-out in the South African innings. He scored 31 runs off 39 balls. Duminy didn’t take any risk and guided his team to 265 in their allotted overs. He scored an unbeaten 71 runs.
Yuvraj Singh was the main threat for the Proteas as he took three wickets for his team.
In response to the South African total, India didn’t start ideally and lost wickets at regular intervals. The only resistance came from http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Virat-Kohli-c95424, who scored an unbeaten 87 runs in the match.
When rain eventually stopped the match, India were 48 runs behind according to the D/L method. Kohli would have been disappointed as he could have scored a century and helped his team win the match.
Lonwabo Tsotsobe and Peterson took two wickets each in the match for the home team, while Duminy was named man-of-the-match. The series decider will be played at Centurion on 23 January.
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