South Africa
Sai Sudharsan and KL Rahul score fifties each but it wasn’t enough for a win•AFP/Getty Images
In the third over of his second spell, Williams produced an unplayable delivery that kicked off just short of a length and took Sudharsan’s glove to dismiss him for 62 off 83. At 113 for 3 in the 27th over, India still needed one more partnership before they could think of accelerating but Sanju Samson played Beuran on after looking good once again.
Despite having lost four wickets, Rahul and debutant Rinku Singh looked to attack before the 40th over, which got them 31 runs in 22 balls, but ended in Rahul cutting Burger straight to backward point for 56 off 64. This is when Maharaj came into his own, slowing the ball down and using the drift from the wind to have Rinku stumped and Kuldeep Yadav caught on the sweep. This was a crucial helping hand just before the death overs.
A couple of connected slogs from Arshdeep Singh and Avesh Khan took India past 200 but they batted only 46.2 overs despite going into the last 20 overs with seven wickets in hand.
Arshdeep was much more impressive with the ball, getting consistent swing and seam, often proving to be too good to take the edge. Reeza, who had spent the first overs of the last two international unable to lay bat on ball, took first strike again and found things slightly easier. Only slightly. He edged Mukesh to second slip in the fifth over, but Gaikwad dropped a second catch there in two matches.
Reeza was in control of just 22 of the first 35 balls he faced, de Zorzi 15 of the first 31 he played. However, de Zorzi was quick to punish any error in length, keeping the run-rate around four. This absorbed the entirety of the highly testing spell of 5-0-14-0 from Arshdeep and Mukesh’s 4-0-12-0. At this point, spin came on at one end, and at the other, Avesh began to bowl a touch too short.
Like expert batters do, the South Africa openers now filled their boots, first by slowly working around singles and then targeting Kuldeep and Avesh. De Zorzi swept Kuldeep for four sixes, three of them slogs and only one of them off a wrong’un, which suggests little help for the spinners, which makes Maharaj’s contribution earlier in the day significant.
When Mukesh and Arshdeep came back for their second spells, they still moved the ball around, they still troubled the batters, but by then, South Africa had gone past 100. The floodlights had barely come on by then.
Reeza reaped the rewards for hanging in there, getting to a fifty, before he hooked Arshdeep straight to long leg, having added 130 for the first wicket. India had no option but to over-attack now, and both de Zorzi and Rassie van der Dussen cashed in. De Zorzi was there at the end to hit the winning six with 45 balls remaining and eight wickets in hand.
Sidharth Monga is a senior writer at ESPNcricinfo