5 reasons for India’s Victory

Indians have finally broken the jinx and have got lucky the fourth time. This was an ideal kind of a match with India dominating in all the departments. Here are the 5 major reasons of this great victory:

1.) Partnerships

With Rohit Sharma getting out in an unfortunate manner (run out), India were under some pressure at 9 for 1. But the duo of Shikhar Dhawan and Virat Kohli did it again for India as they did in the last match taking their side away from danger. They both absorbed the new ball and stuck together for an important partnership of 127 runs which laid down the platform for a huge score. But the game changer for me was the next partnership between Dhawan and Rahane. After losing Kohli, Rahane had stepped in. India needed acceleration if they had to reach the 300 mark. Rahane did what was required at the moment. He came in carrying the confidence from the warm up matches and started timing the ball sweetly. He scored quickly and took the pressure off Dhawan, who went on to score an amazing 137. This partnership of 115 took the game away from South Africa.

 2.) Excellent use of batting powerplay

India couldn’t make full use of the batting powerplay in the last match, but the story was different this time. The batting powerplay was taken at the start of the 36 over, with two set batsmen in the form of Dhawan and Rahane at the crease. Both batsmen looked to attack and were successful in doing that, taking apart Wayne Parnell and Steyn. They scored 44 runs in the powerplay which gave them enough momentum to take into the final 10 overs in which India scored 80 runs.

3.) New Ball Bowling

Indians were excellent in the last match with the new ball and so were they this time. Shami, Umesh and Sharma were on the attack from the start, bowling probing lines and lengths and the occasional short balls to keep the batsmen guessing. They dented South African hopes of chasing down the target by first removing Quinton De Cock and then Mohit Sharma removing the dangerous Hashim Amla of an excellent bouncer. They kept the pressure on the bastmen throughout.

4.) Indian Spin bowling

Although spin bowling from South Africans was pretty good, with Tahir and Duminy keeping the batsmen quiet, but Ashwin and Jadeja were better. Jadeja was brought into the attack by Dhoni very early in the innings. He bowled tight lines and didn’t give away easy runs. Jadeja is slowly coming back to his very best. Ashwin, though started off poorly, with giving away more than 6 in an over initially, but he still didn’t lose heart and was giving the ball its due flight. He was rewarded in the end when he finished the match with figures of 41-3 from his 10 overs.

5.) Difference in captaincy

Though SA looked way better than India on paper, but they still lost the match. Due credit should also been given to the captaincy of MS Dhoni. It seems as if whatever he touches turns into gold. He gave his bowlers the required confidence by giving them the field which was attacking and at the same time run saving if they erred in line due to which his bowlers were bowling with a lot of spite. He always kept the fielders inside the 30 yard circle to save singles. As soon as a wicket fell, he would attack the new batsman with slips. De Villiers, on the other hand wasn’t very good with his captaincy. Once he lost Philander as a bowling option, he couldn’t find a way to stop the Indians from scoring and hence SA had to chase a heavy total of 308.

Dhoni’s excellent captaincy along with excellent performances from Dhawan, Kohli, Rahane and the complete bowling lineup finally made it 3-1 against SA.

Edited by Shivang Aggarwal