India Thrash South Africa, Make Their Famed Batting Line-Up Bite The Eden Dust
Editor-in-Chief of indiacommentary.com. Current Affairs analyst and political commentator.
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By Sunil Garodia
First publised on 2023-11-06 04:13:17
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Editor-in-Chief of indiacommentary.com. Current Affairs analyst and political commentator.
View all posts by this Author
It was billed to be a clash of the titans in this World Cup. India and South Africa, the table toppers, were the best bowling team and batting team respectively and fans were waiting to see how the awesome India bowling unit would fare against the South African batters who were scoring centuries at will against most other teams. Quinton de Kock is in the form of his life and was the leading run-getter in the tournament with 545 runs and 4 centuries before Sundays match. R van der Dussen had scored a polished 133 in the last match. The power-hitting skills of Markram, Klassen and David Miller were held in awe by other teams. Against this, the Indian bowling unit had performed devastatingly in the tournament, bowling out teams much before the 50-over quota. Jasprit Bumrah, Md Siraj, Md Shami, Kuldeep Yadav and Ravindra Jadeja have all fired, individually or in unison, to create problems for the best of the batters. It was to be a mouth-watering contest and Eden was chock-a-block with fans, some of whom had paid upwards of Rs 20000 in the black market to get a ticket.
But it was anti-climax on Sunday. The highest run-getter, the last-match centurion and the power-hitters were all brought to their knees by a special effort from Indian bowlers on a tricky pitch. Led by Ravindra Jadeja, the Indian bowlers never allowed the Proteas to settle in and dismissed them for just 83 runs, their lowest ODI score. It revived the talk that the South Africans are chokers (they get choked when faced with a huge total to chase) and their batters cannot play spin. On the day, there was complete lack of application on their part. They knew the pitch was tricky. They had seen how Keshav Maharaj had bowled brilliantly when the Indians were batting. They had seen a batting master class from Virat Kohli (101 not out), who scored a record-equaling century and who had shown how to bat in these conditions and on such a pitch. Yet, when they came out to bat, the South Africans gave up in the second over itself when Md Siraj induced de Kock to play on. None of their subsequent batters displayed a knack for a fight and it was as if they had conceded defeat before batting. The way a batter like David Miller exposed his stumps while going for a shot only to be bowled by Jadeja showed that they did not use their experience to dig in and make a match of it.
With this win, India remained at the top of the table with an all-win record. More importantly, the bowling unit has shown that it can get any team out in any condition. With both the bowlers and the batters in superb form, it is only a bad day in office that can dent India's chances of lifting the World Cup at home after 12 years. Fans will be hoping that there are no bad days for Team India till November 19.
