ICC Champions Trophy 2017: India Trounced South Africa To Get In To The Semi Final

The battle of Champions in the ongoing Champions Trophy seems to exhilarate in a very dramatic fashion. India in their must win encounter with South Africa on Sunday, survived their defending run in this champions league. Having done so they now successfully clinched their Semi Final berth through clobbering the Africans by eight wickets at the Kennington Oval, London.

The number one ODI team, South Africa seemed totally out of their glorious touch against the defending champion India. The South African side couldn’t stand strong on their given challenge to bat first against the mighty chasing side India. Hence resulting the same India bowled out the African batting onslaught for a puny 191 with the help of India’s high class bowling blitz from Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Jasprit Bumrah. After the bowlers, the same chip fell onto the shoulders of Indian batsmen, they displayed their magnificent touch with bat which led them chase down the target in 12 overs remaining. Shikhar Dhawan exhibited his classy batting potential with his 83 balls 76 runs while Skipper Virat Kohli responding to the same momentum remained unbeaten on 76. This is the fifth time Indian have reached to the Semi Final stage of the Champions Trophy.

The match went on like this;

South Africa’s steady start:

Once put in to bat, South African openers Quinton De Kock and Hashim Amla headed off to a steady start. With the score of 53 De Kock and Amla scoring 35 seemed quite set in the middle. South Africa witnessed their first boundary in the fourth over when de Kock connected a length delivery from Bumrah and following the same, Amla too opened his hands and grabbed his first boundary in the sixth over, getting on top of a length delivery from Bumrah to cut the ball towards the point fence. After the completion of 10th over while South Africa was on 35, Ashwin and Pandya came into attack which led these two African batsmen to chance their hands. So Ashwin was hit for a four by de Kock and Amla clobbered Pandya for a six and four in one over but very soon with the help of Dhoni’s gloves skill, Africa’s opening onslaught had been put to rest by Ashwin’s magic which made Amla’s way back to pavilion quite explicit. Hence Faf Du Plessis joined De Kock in the middle and this duo made it possible for South Africa to reach past 100 mark. De Kock soon reached his 13th ODI fifty off 68 deliveries but was cleaned up by Ravindra Jadeja for 53 off 72 deliveries.

Run Outs nick South Africa:

De Kock’s dismissal made the way for the skipper AB de Villiers to steer his team from the middle. De Villiers and Du Plessis both were heading towards a good partnership but all of a sudden the miscommunication between these two arrested the team’s momentum. With the niggle De Villiers seemed to be struggling a bit but the risk taken by Du Plessis placing a delivery to the point area cost them their skipper’s wicket as he couldn’t survive Pandya’s  throw despite of his full stretched diving towards the striking end where Dhoni was ready with his lightening speed show behind the stump. The South African skipper departed for 16 off 12 in the 29th over. Next miscommunication took place in the very next over when Du Plessis seemed hesitated after edging the ball to the third man area but the new batsman David Miller showed the confidence and made it all the way to the batting end where Du Plessi was standing still with ambiguity. A bad throw landed to the batting end was ended to the safe hands of Kedar Jadhav at the non striker end and he whipped the bails off which led Miller depart for one.

India tangled South Africa:

After this double blow, South Africa found it very difficult to find their feet in this game, hence resulting such blow Du Plessis soon perished a cutter from Pandya and was castled for 36 off 53 deliveries. Bumrah’s arrival to the attack led Indian side get rid of Chris Morris for four and then removed Andile Phehlukwayo leg before wicket. Bhuvneshwar then wiped out the tail with the wickets of Kagiso Rabada and Morne Morkel off successive deliveries. With a third run-out, South Africa’s innings folded up for 191 in 44.3 overs.

Rohit’s silly endeavour to go big:

As the chase begun, India seemed to attack South African bowling onslaught from the front itself. Rohit Sharma in his third over against Rabada went big with a four and six. Following the same Dhawan also got himself a maximum against the mighty Morkel. But Rohit going beyond the situational demand went on to sealing a maximum for himself against the same Morkel and ended up losing his wicket by edging a delivery to De Kock behind the stump for 12 off 20 deliveries.

Kohli Dhawan duo wrapped up the leftover task:

After Rohit when Kohli went to the middle, he was welcomed with few rippers from Rabada and then by Morkel. Initially he struggles a bit but after facing 25 deliveries he found his momentum in bat and hit a maximum off medium-pacer Phehlukwayo. On the other end Dhawan was resonating quite well as he was pretty much set with the blitz Africans got for this battle. Dhawan hit back to back boundaries to the deliveries of Morkel. Following the same Kohli was geared his pace and hit four boundaries in quick times. With a boundary off Morris, Dhawan got to his 19th ODI fifty – his third successive fifty plus score in the tournament. Kohli followed suit and hit his 41st ODI fifty off 71 deliveries. Dhawan after clobbering two boundaries to Morris perished himself to wrong turn from Tahir and placed the ball to the safe hands of Du Plessis in the deep for 78 with the help of 12 fours and one six. The second wicket association yielded 128 runs in just 24.4 overs. India went on to chase down the target with eight wickets in hand and 12 overs to spare. Yuvraj Singh clinched the match with a six and remained unbeaten on 23.