Left-handed opener de Kock hit 109, de Villiers notched 119 and du Plessis smashed 133 to put the Proteas in a near-impregnable position after they chose to bat at a sweltering Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai.
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When it comes to Indian pitches, everyone knows spinners rule the roost.
“We really feel that our decrease order batting is barely on the lighter aspect in relation to enjoying towards good quick bowlers”.
164*: The partnership between du Plessis and de Villiers, the second-best for the third wicket for South Africa against India. What is it that works for them on tours that doesn’t for other teams?
The 22-yearold assembled a good relationship with du Plessis, who arrived on after Hashim Amla was trapped for 23, whilst the batsmen combined of 154 runs for a second -wicket stand. Your fast bowlers have the pace to rush the batsmen, but leak even more runs.
India lost their key campaigner Ravichandran Ashwin early in the series.
Asked if it is time to hand over the responsibility to Kohli in ODI as well, Engineer said: “Kohli is a fantastic cricketer and deserves to be captain”. In the next ODI in Indore, Kagiso Rabada cleaned up Sharma off the 10th ball. It was the first time they have won an ODI series in India and they deserved the spoils after their performance in the deciding match. All the matches, except the final and 5th ODI, can be qualified as thrillers.
With that regard it’s definitely the biggest game and the best game I have captained.
So what were the reasons for South Africa’s tremendous successes in the limited-overs fixtures so far? One could say that they are a brilliant team to start with, with great depth both in the batting and bowling departments. Ashwin is a world class bowler and India did miss him a bit. It has made their job lot easier.
South Africa skipper de Villiers acknowledged the fact that his opposition missed their wrecker-in-chief: “India did miss Ashwin in the later part of the series”.
But South African will, for the second match in a row, be without the services of two important players – 31-year-old seamer Morne Morkel, whose four wickets were essential to the South Africa victory in the Third ODI of the series, and J.P. Duminy, also 31, the Proteas reliable middle-order batsman who doubles as spin-bowling option.
Over the last two years, South Africa have joint-worst Win/Loss ratio along with West Indies among the top eight nations while chasing. They were walloped by a superior South African side by 214 runs in the final match at the Wankhede Stadium, and after the match it seemed the team think tank are running out of excuses for the loss. The have successfully chased down a total over 250 just twice in that period.
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South Africa will now go into an upcoming four-Test series against India with confidence since it also won a preceding three-game Twenty20 series 2-0. Unfortunately for India, it came in Mumbai. This is one area where South Africa need to improve drastically.
