Ind v SA ICC Cricket World Cup 2011: SA Beat India in Thriller in Tough Chase

South Africa won the match on the strength of their endurance and also, through some costly mistakes on the part of team India. While India can only learn from the India v South Africa match in Nagpur in the ICC Cricket World Cup 2011, the thrilling win will have restored faith in the South African team campaign once more.

robin peterson

The match hinged on a knife edge. After all, the question on everyone's lips was: how costly would India's collapse at the death be and if Sachin Tendulkar and Virender Sehwag could think their performances could get India through? The answer was a long wait as the match went down to the wire, but it did little to comfort the Indian team.

Chasing 296 for victory could be considered tough by some. But the pitch was good, and the South African team were buoyed by the latter half of their performance in the field as India collapsed, losing nine wickets for only twenty-nine runs. It allowed South Africa not only a realistic target to chase but also, gave them the confidence they needed after the battering they received at the hands of Sehwag and Tendulkar.

South Africa's chase was built around two half century partnership and two near half century partnerships between the first four partnerships of their innings. And it still needed the heroics in the end to pull them through and annihilate the pain of the loss against England in unexpected circumstances. To have lost twice in such a situation would have only let the tongues continue to wag. By the end of the night, tongues were wagging but only about India's performance.

Graeme Smith and Hashim Amla began to build slowly and steadily towards a forty-one run partnership that was halted by Zaheer Khan who stopped the South African captain his tracks. What followed was an important eighty-six run partnership between Amla and Jacques Kallis. That partnership began to build in South Africa the foundation to make a decent dash for the target with two of the most experienced, prolific hands at the crease.

Amla was building towards another fine innings of sixty-one runs, second only to Kallis who made sixty-nine runs. But South Africa suffered a second blow on the score of 127 in the twenty-eighth over when Amla was dismissed by Harbhajan Singh. But the concerns were set aside as AB de Villiers joined Kallis at the crease.

AB has been the man in form, scoring two centuries in a row in the ICC Cricket World Cup 2011. AB helped South Africa accelerate opportunities with a half centuries off only thirty-nine balls, as his positive batting put South Africa in a strong position to actually win the match.

But the drama was not over. AB's wicket with South Africa's score on 223 left South Africa with still some work to do without Kallis, AB or Amla. South Africa turned once more to the relatively unexposed middle-lower order batting that suffered against England. JP Duminy and Johan Botha promised to delivered but failed as Harbhajan Singh tightened the noose.

It took enterprise from Robin Peterson to make it count with the bat with Faf du Plessis for company. While Faf is the newcomer to the squad, Peterson found in Faf the perfect partner to help with the advice but also, keep a cool mind as South Africa were always chasing at least twenty runs more than the number of balls available to them.

South Africa needed seventeen runs from twelve balls when Peterson joined du Plessis who was batting strong for his twenty-three runs till that point. With Peterson, the pressure was taken of du Plessis because while South Africa coudl only score four runs in the penultimate over from Zaheer Khan, Peterson made India pay for the costly mistake of picking Ashish Nehra for the final over.

Needing thirteen runs from only six balls, Peterson immediately eased the pressure by first getting a streak four down fine leg and then by hitting Nehra for a six off the second ball. Peterson then creams one to the boundary as South Africa won the match decisively by three wickets, as Dale Steyn ran away with the Man of the Match for staging a comeback, with some help from the Indian batsmen, with a five-for after the early clobbering. India's regret: They did not make the clobbering count for more and Mahendra Singh Dhoni made no bones about it.