London: The Indian team came out with a brilliant performance, both with the ball and in the field, to bowl out South Africa for a lowly 191 in their last Group B fixture of the ongoing Champions Trophy here at the Oval on Sunday.
Put into bat, the Proteas had a solid start as both Quinton de Kock(53) and Hashim Amla (35) put on 76 runs for the opening stand. However, once Ravichandran Ashwin---playing his first match of the ongoing Champions Trophy---got the wicket of Amla, things just started to fall apart for the AB de Villiers-led side.
After the duo, only Faf du Plessis could manage to stay on the crease for a bit long and contributed valuable 36 runs.
The onus was on du Plessis to then bat through the innings. However, like the Pakistan match, he dragged one back off Hardik Pandya and got bowled.
From 116/1, they found themselves struggling at 157/5. JP Duminy was the only recognised batsman in the middle and he too could not stay long and help his side reach to a respectable total.
And ultimately, the No. 1 ODI side was bowled out for 191 in just 44.3 overs.
Apart from the brilliant bowling performance, the Men in Blue were exceptional in the field as they pulled off three run-outs to put the brakes during the course of the South African innings.
Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Jasprit Bumrah both picked up two wickets while Pandya, Ashwin and Jadeja all chipped in with a wicket each.
Considering the heavy Indian batting line-up, it should not be a difficult task for Virat Kohli and Co. to get across the line and book their place in the semi-finals.
