India seal first ODI series win on SA soil

India seal first ODI series win on SA soil

Rohit Sharma's 115 aids India to a 73-run victory over South Africa in 5th ODI in Port Elizebeth.

Having been 3-1 In the series, Virat Kohli and India were looking to wrap up their first one day international series win in South Africa for 25 years.

It was the Proteas who wan the toss and put the Indians in to bat on what looked a slow pitch. The tourists got of to a decent start with Shikhar Dhawan hitting some glorious drives through the covers. Rohit Sharma also began to hit some boundaries. 

Both openers looked in scintillating form until Dhawan went for a ambitious hook shot that went straight into the hands of Andile Phehlukwayo at deep square leg with the score on 48-1.      

Kohli and Shama managed to calm things down, but history shows that both these batsman have a tendency to run each other out and this proved to be the case yet again as the as the captain was run out by the vice captain for 36 runs. 

The chaos continued when Ajinkya Rahane was also run out after facing 18 balls for just eight runs, Sharma the culprit once again.

Luckily, this did not have a massive impact on Sharma as the 'Hitman' drove his way to a splendid 115 runs of 126 balls, with some useful contributions from Shreyas Iyer who scored 30 from 37, MS Dhoni who scored 13 from 17 and Bhuvneshwar Kumar who scored 19 off 20. This meant that India were able set competitive a target of 275 for South Africa to level the series.

In pursuit of the target, The Proteas got of to a good start scoring 52 runs in 9.4 overs without losing a wicket, then came a flurry of wickets. Aiden Markram was the first man to go as he hit one straight  to Kohli at mid-wicket. Markram was given a life earlier by Iyer but the South African stand in skipper could only manage to score 32 runs. JP Duminy was the next man in, but didn't last long as Hardik Pandya managed to find the outside edge of the left hander's bat and Sharma took a good catch at slip.      

Ab de Villiers was the next man to go soon after for just 6 runs. Hardik Pandya claimed his second scalp as de Villiers was caught behind by MS Dhoni while attempting to play a square cut leaving the score on 65-3. This was a crucial wicket as de Villiers is one of South Africa's top batman, especially in the one day and twenty20 format. 

Their was then a partnership of 82 between Hashim Amla and David Miller. The duo seamed to have things under control until Miller ran down the wicket and was clean bowled by leg spinner Yuzvendra Chahal followed by Amla being run out by Pandya with the score on 166 for 5. This was the start of yet another collapse from the rest of the South African batting line up as the spin twins Chahal and Kuldeep continued to torment and bamboozle the middle to lower order. Both the wrist spinners claimed the last five wickets for 35 runs including a freakish one handed catch by Pandya to dismiss Tabraiz Shamsi which meant that India won the match by 73 runs  taking the six-match series 4-1 with with one game remaining.

For his splendid hundred, Sharma was announced man of the match. Captain Kohli was also delight with the series win over the Proteas 'It's a wonderful feeling to have created some history. The guys really got stuck in, with the bat and the ball and in the field as well."