Big Ticket contest ends in heartbreak for India

The meeting between India and South Africa was billed as the Big Ticket match, and it certainly lived up to its name. In a match where the pendulum swung to and fro on several occasions, a winner could only be decided after 99.4 overs – and it was the visitors who emerged victors by 3 wickets.

India, who opted to bat first on perhaps the flattest batting track one has witnessed in the competition so far, only managed to post 296 runs on the board, after looking set to post a total close to 400 mid-way through the innings. South Africa, having staged an astonishing comeback in the first session, got off to a sound start before a middle order collapse tilted the match back in favour of the hosts. However, Faf du Plessis (25) and Robin Peterson (18) kept their nerves in the dying moments to steer their team past the finish line with two balls to spare.

Sachin Tendulkar’s 48^th ODI century, his rollicking opening partnership with Virender Sehwag (73) and a shocking collapse were the highlights of the Indian innings. South Africa have had this history of crumbling under pressure in the “Big” matches, and the pressure seemed to have gotten to them on this occasion too. Virender Sehwag’s boundary off Dale Steyn off the first ball of the match added to South Africa’s woes, and they seemed to lose focus from thereon.

Sehwag and Tendulkar feasted on the South African bowlers – pace and spin alike – and got the team off to a rollicking start. 100 of the innings was raised in the 12^th over and both batsmen were looking good for a big innings. Such was South Africa’s poor showing in the Quick Start overs that the Castrol Index actually gave them a negative marking for their Bowling.

While Sehwag was his usual self, ready to pounce on any length and width offered to him, Tendulkar played the perfect innings. When Tendulkar is on song, one can expect to see the straight drives right out of the copy book, and he did that on a couple of occasions during this knock – just an indication that he was “in the zone”. The duo added 142 runs in just under 18 overs. Graeme Smith, fast running out of ideas, introduced du Plessis into the attack, and the leg-spinner struck, almost against the run of play when he dismissed Sehwag.

Gautam Gambhir (69 from 75 balls) then added 125 runs in the company of the Little Master, and though the run-rate dropped, India were always in control of proceedings. However, India took the batting Power Play in the 39^th over, and the match turned on its head. Batsman-after-batsman walked in, attempted the “glamour shots”, perished, and walked back to the dressing room. In an astonishing passage of play, India lost 9 wickets for 29 runs to be bowled out for 296, with eight balls remaining to be bowled.

Dale Steyn was the biggest beneficiary of India’s largesse; the lanky paceman who was taken to the cleaners in his first spell came back for a third spell and picked up 5 for 9 from 3.4 overs. Morne Morkel (1/59), Jacques Kallis (1/43), Robin Peterson (2/52) and du Plessis (1/22) were the other wicket-takers for the Proteas.

Cut to the run-chase, the Proteas were given a sound start by the openers Hashim Amla and Graeme Smith. While Hashim Amla (India’s nemesis in recent times) was on song from the word go, playing fluent drives through covers and mid off, Smith struggled against his nemesis Zaheer Khan. The openers added 41 before Smith succumbed to his nemesis yet again, attempting to go over the top, but failing to clear the man at mid off. Amla (61) and Jacques Kallis (69) then kept the Indian bowlers at bay for the next 90-odd minutes to set up the run-chase, adding 86 runs in the process. AB de Villiers (52), JP Duminy (23) contributed useful runs, but their dismissals swung the match back in favour of India.

Just when the Indians had bowled a few quiet overs in the Extreme Performance overes and were trying to nail the match, the match once again turned in favour of the visitors, thanks to cameos from Johan Botha (23 from 15 balls) and Robin Peterson (18* from 15 balls), with the latter creaming 16 runs off the final over bowled by Ashish Nehra to seal the deal.

The story of the match can be summed up in two simple numbers; India had a shocking Extreme Performance Batting index of 8, while South Africa finished with a Extreme Performance Batting index of 38.