India vs South Africa: 1st ODI: Jaipur

Can I be a little selfish here?

I am jumping over the moon that India won the cliff-hanger with the last ball victory and how gory it was to go 1-0 up in the series to maintain the number 2 position in the ICC ODI ranking and all blah blah. But frankly speaking, I enjoyed the game more than India winning it. Call me un-patriotic if you may, but the fact is that the match was made worthwhile by five men who were on either side of the teams today, but will be colleagues in the IPL 2010 within a fortnight. Virat Kohli, Praveen Kumar, Dale Steyn, Jacques Kallis and Mark Boucher – the five men from Club Royal Challengers who transformed the first ODI between India and South Africa a nail-biting battlefield.

Brief Scores:

India: 298/9 in 50 overs (Raina 58, Sehwag 46, Kallis 3/29)
South Africa: 297 all out in 50 overs (Kallis 89, Steyn 35, Jadeja 2/29)

India won by one run.

India vs South Africa: 1st ODI: Jaipur

Can I be a little selfish here?

I am jumping over the moon that India won the cliff-hanger with the last ball victory and how gory it was to go 1-0 up in the series to maintain the number 2 position in the ICC ODI ranking and all blah blah. But frankly speaking, I enjoyed the game more than India winning it. Call me un-patriotic if you may, but the fact is that the match was made worthwhile by five men who were on either side of the teams today, but will be colleagues in the IPL 2010 within a fortnight. Virat Kohli, Praveen Kumar, Dale Steyn, Jacques Kallis and Mark Boucher – the five men from Club Royal Challengers who transformed the first ODI between India and South Africa a nail-biting battlefield.

Eventually India won, by the proverbial whisker when it was thought that Steyn and Wayne Parnel would run through the weak India bowling with an amazing 38-ball 65 run partnership for the ninth wicket. Though our very own Steyn wasn’t successful with the ball, but he showed his mettle with the willow, cracking a 19-ball 35 with three sixes and nearly took the match away from the grasp of MS Dhoni.

But Dhoni played the trump at the most opportune moment. Praveen Kumar, another Royal Challenger, who had given India the first break by uprooting Loots Bossman’s stumps, had three overs left of his quota of 10 overs, when he was handed the ball to deliver the last over of the day when South Africa required 10 runs to win the match. The equation was an improbable 14 runs per over rate at one time for South Africa with only two wickets in hand, when Steyn and Parnel started to set the stage for a glorious comeback. But PK, as he is popularly known to us, had other ideas. He clean bowled Steyn with his second delivery which killed the momentum for the Proteas. Carl Langeveldt tried his best to notch up a boundary, but a 36 year old young lion by the name of Sachin Tendulkar, who had earlier failed with the bat running himself out, dived full length on the ropes to save a boundary which proved the most crucial save of the match. Requiring three runs off the last ball, PK bowled a wide one which lessened the margin to two. Parnell then sliced the last ball to third man to run for his life, but couldn’t manage to cross the line before the lifeline was cut off by Dhoni.

India won. But it wouldn’t be possible had Virat Kohli, a great young motivator from Club RC, not build the innings during the middle overs with Suresh Raina, the hero of Indian batting. Virat didn’t score much, just 31 off 46 balls, but that 13 overs – 66 run partnership with Raina developed the platform for India to raise the stakes during the death overs.

Lastly, but not the least, Kallis stood as tall as he could with another stellar performance, but for a lost cause. 89 runs off 97 balls was a stoic innings which could have taken the visitors to the finishing line but for some clever bowling by Sreeshanth. But Kallis proved his allround magic picking up three wickets miserly for only 29. To my mind, he should have been the Man of the Match. But he was pipped on the line by Ravindra Jadeja – probably because Jadeja was on the winning side.

And in cricket, winning matters.

Brief Scores:

India: 298/9 in 50 overs (Raina 58, Sehwag 46, Kallis 3/29)
South Africa: 297 all out in 50 overs (Kallis 89, Steyn 35, Jadeja 2/29)

India won by one run.