The Proteas completed an almost flawless performance on Tuesday to level the series one-all in Gqeberha and thereby set-up a series-deciding third and final One Day International match on Thursday at Boland Park in Paarl.
Having subjected India to a crushing eight-wicket defeat, Independent Media’s Ongama Gcwabe highlights Two Plays of the Day from the second ODI.
1 Moment of brilliance
As South Africans we have always been blessed with some of the finest fast bowlers to have ever played the game, so much that when spinners come up the ranks, we barely take note of or celebrate just how good they are.
Keshav Maharaj is one of those spinners - a bowler that often goes under the radar with big quicks such as Kagiso Rabada always the centre of attention. However, on Tuesday Maharaj produced a peach of a delivery to lower-order batter Rinku Singh to dismiss him.
It was one of those deliveries that most spinners, and in this case even wicket-keepers, dream of. Maharaj flighted the ball at just the right pace, enticing the left-handed batter Singh into a booming drive only to have the outside edge of his bat beaten by a wrong’un, with Heinrich Klaasen behind the stumps capitalising on the error to ensure that Singh was stumped out.
In his very next over, Maharaj produced yet another perfectly flighted delivery to Kuldeep Yadav, inducing the batter into a big sweep shot, a stroke that led to his demise.
It was this spell that certainly set the game up for the South African batters to have a modest total to chase down.
2 Shot of the Day
Opening batter Tony de Zorzi has been in fine form domestically, helping Western Province to the Cricket South Africa One Day Cup trophy at the beginning of the season, their first One Day Cup in almost a decade.
De Zorzi’s form was clearly visible even I the disastrous eight-wicket defeat in Johannesburg last week where the left-handed batter score 28 runs in a total of 116 runs by the team.
The 26-year-old made light work of Kuldeep Yadav’s wrist spin and took him on, hitting the spinner over long-on for six to get one run short of a maiden One Day International half-century.
To get to his maiden international century, De Zorzi smashed a massive six off the bowling of Tilak Varma’s off-spin. It was a short pitched delivery that disappeared over the square-leg boundary before the 26-year-old got took a single to move to three figures.