The Johannesburg thriller

At the half-way mark of the India vs SA, 2nd ODI at Wanderers, or probably even before the half-way mark, I thought India were all but done, and the symptoms were pointing toward a series similar to the India-NZ one just before 2003 World Cup. But the match had things more exciting that what I had expected!

Chasing 191 for a victory, SA were cruising, but still going by their choking capacities, there was a glimmer of hope. And the final equation just goes to suggest SA's choking capabilities more than India's abilities; from 160-5 to 189-all out!!

What I personally liked about the match was Dhoni's captaincy and his luck!! He rotated the bowlers well, with very short spells of 2-3 overs each, even for spinners, particularly towards the latter part of SA innings. And, of course, Munaf Patel and Zaheer Khan bowled beautifully to get those key wickets. Althought Nehra bowled well to get AB De Villiers, I thought he has to stem the flow of runs in his early (and death) overs. This performance also gives some selection head-aches for seamers: Zaheer, Nehra, Praveen, Munaf, Sreesanth; which is good from the WC perspective. Hopefull they do not get injured in the rest of the series!

But all said, the key catalyst for India's victory was SA's greed for fast runs and thereby opting of the "Batting powerplay" that was never required. Once that was taken, singles were cut off, and they had to go over the top to get those boundaries, and hence that additional risk! Look at this for a comparison, India scored 14 runs for 4 wickets in their batting powerplay, SA scored 20 runs for 3 wickets. But the damage was heavier for SA, because they were playing only 6 batsmen against India's 7.

Finally, SAs need to develop a good brain over their shoulders and avoid the choking that has kept a major tournament title out of their reach, in order to prosper in the upcoming WC. On the other hand, India needs to bat and bowl well in the same match; at this point these 2 are not happening simultaneously!