A blockbuster series between India and South Africa couldn't have got underway in a better way than it did on Friday. The batsmen expressed their utmost freedom keeping in tune with the name of the tourney i.e Gandhi-Mandela Freedom series while sixes and fours were very much the order of the day.
The 'not so big' ground at Dharamsala combined with a dewy night complicated the problems for the bowlers who were already at the mercy of the batters.Constantly the white towels were coming out and still it was hard to grip the ball. The 22 yards turned into a batting paradise as the evening transcended into night and Rohit Sharma's record breaking century proved too little too less for the home team.
It was all about Indian batsmen vs South African batsmen and at the end of the day it turned out to a perfect thriller which the cricket fans around the globe wanted to see. There were a lot of key moments in the match but out of which the Proteas seized these game changing instances to pull ahead of the 'men in blue'. At the end of the day, over no. 16s of both the innings proved to be the game changer.
1. Double whammy
The Indians were going all guns blazing till the 15th over of their innings. Rohit Sharma had already done a Suresh Raina by notching up his maiden twenty20 ton and giving him company was Virat Kohli who was nearing his half century. But just when the duo tried to hit the fifth gear, Kyle Abbott struck, not once but twice in the 16th over, sending both the settled batsmen back in the hut as they tried to pull the right arm pacer. India never quite recovered from that situation, ending 15-20 runs short at the end.
2. Strong opening stand
There was only one way the visitors could have reached this big target, which was to get off to cracking start and Hashim Amla and AB de Villiers did just that. The experienced combo tore apart the pace trio of Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Sreenath Aravind and Mohit Sharma and had already notched up 67 runs at a run rate of 11.16 until the fielding restrictions were lifted. The Indian tweakers did slow down the scoring rate after that but by then their opposition were already in a position where they could take the hit of a few calm overs.
3.Duminy survives two big appeals
This was a kind of a game where the batsmen found the going easy once they were settled and Duminy was lucky that he got a chance to finish off the encounter for his team after surviving two close leg before the wicket appeals.
First was in the 13th over when the left hander was batting on 5. Axar Patel bowled a gentle left arm orthodox spinner's delivery and the middle order bat missed the line completely after advancing forward to turn the ball on the leg. It hit him in the line and looked out.
The next one was a far closer shout. Bhuvneshwar Kumar bowled a perfect yorker which breached the defence of Duminy and crashed into his shoes and he was plumb in front of the wicket.The all-rounder was on 33 at that point and had those decision gone in favour of the Indians, the outcome of the match could have been something different.
4. Three sixes in the 16th over
After the end of the 15th over of South Africa's innings, they were left needing 66 runs in 30 balls and Duminy blasted Axar Patel for three maximums to get the blood flowing in his vein and that signalled a change in the shift of momentum. The required run rate came down from 13.20 to 11.00 and put the Indian quickies under more pressure and they wilted.
5. Dual trouble
If Amla and De Villiers had laid a platform for the big chase, Duminy and Farhaan Behardien continued the good work and snatched victory from the hosts with an unbeaten 105-run partnership.
Duminy grabbed all the limelight for his daredevil knock but Berhardien was equally important as he kept rotating the strike and hit the occasional boundaries to take the pressure off his partner. He finished with 32 runs from 23 balls with four boundaries and one maximum.
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