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India pulled off a shocking 1-run win in the Second ODI at Johannesburg to level the 5-Match Series 1-0. India batting first after winning the toss came up with a below par 190 but they ended up bowling out the hosts for 189 to clinch a narrow victory. India’s bowling wasn’t at its best but it was more of the South African batsmen playing bad shots to lose their wickets.
India Innings
Both sides went into this match with unchanged sides. India was kept on the backfoot with the new ball pair of Steyn and Tsotsobe giving nothing away with the new ball. The visitors had their first casualty when Murali Vijay miscued a big shot to get caught around mid on in the 8th over. India at that time was 21 for 1 and looking desperately to find some momentum. There was a promising partnership between Tendulkar and Kohli for the second wicket but it was cut short by a run out. Kohli (22 from 34 balls) was run out after he was sent back by Tendulkar while trying to steal a single from Miller at covers in the 18th over. India lost Tendulkar (24 from 44 balls) in the very next over when he dragged a backfoot shot off Johan Botha onto his off stump to reduce the score to 67 for 3.
India was let off the hook in the middle overs as Smith for some reason didn’t bring back Steyn or Morkel when Yuvraj was new at the crease. With MS Dhoni, Yuvraj Singh hung in there for quite some time to put India back on track. In the 37th over, it was back to square one for India as Yuvraj Singh (53 from 68 balls with 4 fours) threw his wicket after lofting Tsotsove flat into the hands of mid off. The left hander put up an 83-run stand for the fourth wicket with his Skipper Dhoni. Despite a launching pad of 150 for 4, India’s innings went nowhere as they lost as many as four wickets for the addition of just 14 runs once the batting powerplay was taken in the 42nd over.
The very first ball of the batting powerplay saw the wicket of Suresh Raina (11) going down as he got lbw to a full ball from Tsotsobe. In the 44th over, MS Dhoni got out dragging a flick shot off Tsotsobe onto his stumps after a patient 38 from 61 balls. India in no time after this got bowled out for 190 in 47.2 overs. Lonwabo Tsotsobe picked up superb figures of 10-2-22-4 while Steyn and Morkel took two wickets each.
South Africa Innings
South Africa in their run chase lost the wicket of Amla in the very second over when he over confidently looked to drive on the up but only to get an inside edge to the keeper off Munaf Patel. SA then tried to build its innings through Graeme Smith and Colin Ingram and were cruising through before Harbhajan Singh came up with the much needed opening. It was Colin Ingram (25 from 30 balls) given out lbw after defending along the wrong line to a drifter from Harbhajan in the 13th over to have SA at 66 for 2. Three overs later, Ashish Nehra produced a beauty to force AB de Villiers to edge him behind to the keeper. This time the hosts were under pressure at 77 for 3 and they desperately needed a good partnership which came between Smith and Duminy.
South Africa was once again cruising through especially with Graeme Smith batting well but again the twist in the game came when JP Duminy (13 from 19 balls) holed out his big shot off Rohit Sharma to long on. SA got to 120 for 4 in the 25th over when David Miller joined Smith. The Smith-Miller partnership lasted for around 8 overs before the big wicket of Graeme Smith (77 from 98 balls with 8 fours) fell down. It was Munaf Patel who provided the breakthrough with Smith dragging an expansive drive onto the stumps in the 33rd over. There was more trouble in store for the hosts as Zaheer Khan returned back and got two quick wickets that of David Miller (who scored 27 from 28 balls and got caught top edging a pull shot) and Johan Botha who was wrongly given out lbw to a short ball which hit the toe end of the bat while the Umpire thought it had hit the back pad. SA was in tatters at 163 for 7.
When Dale Steyn joined Wayne Parnell in the 36th over, SA were 28 runs away from the target. Half of that was cut by the pair and SA were nicely in a position to win the match but Steyn got run out in the 39th over by the combination of Vijay and Yuvraj. Still SA were the favourites to win the match as the Indian bowlers didn’t bowl any special wicket taking deliveries. The next pair of Parnell and Morkel knocked off 11 more runs out of the target before the former got out cutting Munaf straight into the hands of covers. With just two runs to win, Parnell threw the match by cutting Munaf straight into the hands of Yuvraj at backward point to allow India with a one-run win! Munaf Patel got the Man of the Match for his 4 for 29 in 8 overs.