Durban: India gave yet another pathetic batting display on seam-friendly conditions to suffer an embarrassing 134-run defeat in the second one-dayer against South Africa, who clinched the three-match ODI series by taking an unassailable 2-0 lead here today.
The hosts rode on the two openers, Quinton de Kock (106) and Hashim Amla (100), to pile up 280 for six in the allotted 49 overs before bundling out the hapless visitors for 146 in 35.1 overs on a gloomy day at the Kingsmead.
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The famed Indian batting, which had been in tremendous form in sub-continental conditions, found the going tough against the South African pacemen, who tested them with pace and bounce. Suresh Raina (36) was the only batsman to show a bit of resistance, even as the rest surrendered meekly.
The match was reduced to 49-overs per innings due to wet outfield.
Facing a chaseable target, the Indian top order melted in the wake of some superior fast bowling from Dale Steyn and a nagging line-length bowling by Lonwabo Tsotsobe, who shared seven wickets between them. This was after de Kock and Amla shared an opening stand worth 194 runs. Amla, in the process, crossed the 4000-run mark in ODI, the quickest to do so in 81 matches and beating Sir Vivian Richards' marker of 88 ODIs.
Steyn once again unleashed great pace on the Indian top-order, peppering Shikhar Dhawan and later Virat Kohli. The former was first to fall, in the 2nd over, going after a delivery just outside the off-stump and was out caught at point. He fell for a duck, facing only two balls. Thereafter, after their war of words in the build-up to the match, Steyn welcomed Kohli to the crease with a sharp bouncer.
The Indian vice-captain didn't last long enough to give a proper response, edging Tsotsobe to the keeper, while he was trying to guide a delivery to third man. The ball moved away just a touch at the last minute, enough to kiss the open face of his bat and Kohli returned to the pavilion for a duck. Pretty much, all Indian hopes faded with his departure.
Ajinkya Rahane had come into the side for Yuvraj Singh (suffering from a back spasm) and tried to rebuild the innings with Rohit Sharma.Rahane looked relatively comfortable against Morne Morkel, introduced into the attack in place of Steyn. At the other end, Rohit too got off to a start, unlike in Johannesburg, and scored 19 runs off 26 balls. He hit two boundaries, the second of them a crisp slash past point.
Two balls later, he pulled one off the same bowler, only for Amla to take a stunning catch at short mid-wicket. Within five runs of each other, in a space of six deliveries, Rahane was gone as well, chasing a wide delivery off Morkel and getting a faint edge. He scored 8 runs off 17 balls, with a solitary four, even as the Indian top-order collapsed again, reduced to 34 for 4.
The match was pretty much done, except for an improbable comeback by the remaining batsmen. Skipper MS Dhoni and Raina started in that fashion, but the wind blew away those hopes soon enough. The rain clouds had started gathering and South Africa started going through their overs very quickly, in order to get the 20-over stipulation under D/L method done.
In that time, Dhoni and Raina put together 40 runs, when Vernon Philander (coming in for Wayne Parnell) induced a thick outside edge and de Kock pulled off a stunning catch going to his right. Dhoni was gone for 19 runs off 31 deliveries, and any fight from the batting was officially gone.
Raina continued to knock the ball around, and ran up a score of 36 runs. He faced 50 delivers, and hit three fours, and was dismissed off another brilliant catch. Raina made room for a slap-cut shot off Morkel, but Miller pulled it out of thin air to send him on his way.
Ravindra Jadeja (26) and Ashwin (15) milled around for a bit, before Steyn came back to rock the tail. He snapped up Ashwin and bowled Umesh Yadav (1), while Tsotsobe accounted for Jadeja and Mohammad Shami (8), to wrap up the proceedings.
Tsotsobe finished with 4-25 from 7.1 overs, while Steyn snapped 3-17. Morkel (2-34) and Philander (1-20) were the other wicket-takers.
Earlier in the day, because of wet outfield, the match was delayed for nearly 90 minutes. Dhoni once again opted to field first after winning the toss. South Africa too made a change, bringing in Philander. India made three changes in a bid to reverse the result from the first ODI. Yuvraj was out due to a back spasm and Rahane came in for him. Both Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Mohit Sharma were dropped after a poor showing in the previous match, and Umesh Yadav and Ishant Sharma replaced them in the XI.It didn't really matter to the opening batsmen. de Kock and Amla carried on from where they left in the previous match. In the 4th over, Ishant was introduced into the attack and he induced an edge off de Kock, but the ball flew into the vacant gully area. In the very next over, Shami too got an edge off him, but the ball landed just in front of Ashwin at first slip.
They were the sharpest chances India could get off the duo, apart from a couple mixed-up running shouts.
From thereon, it was another run-fest as the two batsmen ground the Indian bowling to match the colour of the sawdust sprayed on the wet outfield. The 50-run partnership came in the 10th over. In a surprise move, Dhoni had brought on Raina in the 12th over and then introduced Kohli in the 19th.
The Raina-Ashwin combine hadn't resulted in any breakthroughs, but the Indian vice-captain wasn't successful either. South Africa marched on, their 100 coming up in that same over. In doing so, Amla and de Kock broke a record that stood since 2002, when Adam Gilchrist and Matthew Hayden were the last opening pair to put on a 100-plus stand at the Kingsmead.
In the 26th over, at the personal score of 59 runs, Amla beat Richards' record. An over later, the duo raised their second consecutive 150-run stand for the first wicket. The last time an opening pair achieved this feat was in 2002, when Taufeeq Umar and Salim Elahi had done so for Pakistan versus Zimbabwe.
In the 31st over, they went past the Gilchrist-Hayden stand to become the highest opening partnership in ODIs at this ground. When the batting powerplay came on in the 34th over, de Kock completed his third ODI hundred, and a second consecutive one, off 112 balls. He hit eight fours. He fell in the 36th over, caught at square leg by Rohit off Ashwin. South Africa were 194 for 1 at that stage, and it was their highest opening stand at home since 1995, when Gary Kirsten and Mike Rindel had put together 190 versus Pakistan.
This first wicket marked a revival for the Indian team, as Jadeja had de Villiers stumped for just three runs. The visitors had conceded only 27 runs off the powerplay overs in exchanged for two wickets.
The run-scoring slowed down as Amla approached his century-mark and JP Duminy took time to settle down. He did reach his milestone, a first hundred at Durban, in the 44th over. He faced 116 balls and hit eight fours.Amla was out off the very next delivery, as Shami induced a faint edge off a rising delivery with the batsman deciding to play at it very late.
Three balls later, David Miller was wrongly adjudged LBW by umpire Richard Illingworth – he seemed to have got an inside edge onto his pads – and South Africa were suddenly reduced to 234/4 from 190 for no loss.
Duminy (26) struggled to get going at the other end, unlike his whirlwind innings at Wanderers, and was run-out in the 47th over. The Proteas' death-overs were not proceeding as per plan. Jacques Kallis came down the order, after all the shuffling, and tried to throw his bat around in a desperate attempt to up the run-scoring. Yet he could only manage 10 runs off 13 balls, with a lone four.
It was left to Ryan McLaren and Vernon Philander to do some damage. McLaren (12) hit the lone six of this innings in the 49th over, and then watched from the other end, as Philander (14) smacked three fours off the last three balls.
Their 25-run partnership off just 8 balls helped their side reach 280 for 6 as Yadav gave away 20 runs in that final over.
Among the bowlers, Shami once again stood out, adding another three-wicket tally to his name after Johannesburg. His figures of 3-48 from eight overs stood out, even as the rest of the attack bore a more sensible look, thanks to their tight effort in the death overs.
Jadeja finished with 1-49 from his ten overs, while Ashwin returned 1-48 from nine overs, rounding up an overall better bowling performance from the first ODI.
