Related Links : Scorecard : India in South Africa
India have crashed to their third consecutive one-sided defeat, this time by 80 runs to allow South Africa to seal the series 3-0 with one more game to go. Yet another top order failure resulted in India getting bundled out well inside a total of 200 and well under the allotted 50 overs. Port Elizabeth looked like the slowest of all the wickets in this series but the Indians still found it hard to cope up with the pace and bounce of the South African bowlers.
It was South Africa winning the toss yet again and this time as well they batted first. Graeme Smith was the first to go, he was leg before the wicket in the third ball of the game to Zaheer Khan for a duck. Zaheer was complemented well by Sreesanth at the other end who cleaned up Loots Bosman with a quick and full delivery. Both these opening batsmen departed without opening their accounts. Sreesanth was drafted into the side in place of Harbhajan Singh. The other change in the Indian team was Wasim Jaffer for the injured Rahul Dravid. The homeside brought back Andre Nel for Charl Langeveldt.
The initiative of taking two early wickets was lost following a good partnership between the experienced pair of Kallis and Gibbs. It was Anil Kumble who gave his side the much needed breakthrough with his first ball of the match which saw Kallis nicking him to Dhoni after going for a drive on the up in the 18th over. Kallis fell just one short of his fifty; his innings had 9 fours in the 62 balls he had faced. The third wicket partnership put on a valuable stand of 69. AB de Villiers smacked Kumble for a superb six but the very next ball the leg spinner had his revenge with de Villiers missing to connect his paddle sweep shot to a straighter one. Boucher then repaired the damage with Gibbs and in doing so went past the 3500 run mark in his career. He was later dismissed by Sehwag after playing right across his stumps to become the third lbw victim. Last match centurion Justin Kemp’s innings lasted just one ball as he couldn’t keep his square cut off Tendulkar along the ground to be caught at point.
At 155 for 6, South Africa were still in a decent position as they have a tall batting order. Pollock provided the fireworks while Gibbs made sure that he stayed right till the close. Pollock had moved onto 37 from 43 with two sixes before he was run out with his partner not responding to his call for a single. Gibbs remained unbeaten on 93 which had come in 123 balls with 8 fours to take South Africa to 243 for 8 at the end of 50 overs. Anil Kumble who had picked up two wickets in his first two overs couldn’t add up to his wicket tally and his 10 overs had gone for 42 runs. Sehwag had used as many as seven bowlers and his new ball bowlers – Zaheer and Sreesanth didn’t get to bowl their full quota although they had a great first spell.
Makhaya Ntini and Shaun Pollock who have a combined tally of more than 550 ODI wickets got the early wickets of Wasim Jaffer and Sachin Tendulkar. Jaffer was taken in the slips playing away from his body off the backfoot while Tendulkar was caught up in two minds whether to play or leave Pollock’s outswinger. A late decision of leaving the ball wasn’t good enough as Tendulkar had already got an edge by then to be out in the third ball he faced. With Sachin gone, all hopes were on the Skipper Sehwag but he fell playing an uppishly played flick to mid wicket where Bosman took a fabulous diving catch. Sehwag made 18 and India were reduced to 38. In no time it became 39 for 4 with Kaif getting run out due to a bad call from Dinesh Karthik.
The two wicket keepers for India, Karthik and Dhoni got together for the first time and both put on a promising fight that lasted just 7.1 overs adding 43 runs. Both batsmen were dismissed one after the other in similar fashion at the thirdman boundary. Dhoni had made an entertaining 26 from 21 with 4 fours and a six. The tail didn’t show any interest in hanging in there along with Irfan Pathan who did no harm to his batting talent. The left hander was eventually stranded on 47 not out. Pathan had smacked two sixes off Andre Nel. The first of which was over long off and the second one was over point. India got bowled out for 163 in the 39th over itself. Pollock and Ntini had taken two wickets each while Justin Kemp was lucky to get three wickets for his medium pace. The Man of the Match award had gone to Herschelle Gibbs.