South Africa vs India 2021-22, 1st ODI – Who Said What

The first ODI between South Africa and India got underway at Boland Park, Paarl where the hosts continued their winning momentum from the Tests and won the opening clash by 31 runs. It was expected to be a neck-to-neck contest with new skipper KL Rahul leading the visiting side but the middle order woes once again hampered India’s chances in the Rainbow nation.

After choosing to walk in with willows first, the host started off a little slow but they caught the rhythm towards the end and posted 296 runs on the board. After South Africa lost three wickets, the entire limelight was hogged by skipper Temba Bavuma and Rassie van der Dussen. Both the batters smashed brilliant centuries where 110 of 143 came from Bavuma’s bat while Rassie played a skillful knock of 129* off 96 to leave Indian bowlers clueless. Jasprit Bumrah picked two wickets for India.

Tabraiz Shamsi flaunts class again for South Africa

However, when India came on the stage to chase, skipper KL Rahul showed back early but his partner and experienced batter Shikhar Dhawan set the tone with his 79 off 84. Next in line was Virat Kohli who tried balancing the show with his gritty fifty (51) but lacked support from the other end. Shardul Thakur’s 50 came towards the end and got no use when the entire story had ended for India. Shamsi remained the best man from SA’s bowling artillery who picked two wickets while conceding at 5.20.

Winning skipper, Temba Bavuma said:

We played close to a perfect game, that’s quite hard in 50-over cricket. We can take a lot of confidence. I struggled throughout the innings, Rassie seemed like batting on another wicket. That partnership was the decider. I tried to partner him as much as I could. Another good debut for him (Jansen), we feel he can take wickets with the new ball. He’s growing from strength to strength and it’s nice to see. Aiden is always an option with the ball, especially with the new ball. He’s been doing a fantastic job. Andile was good, he understood the situation. He knew what he needed to do. He’s a big player within the team. It’s good to see him take charge. Spinners have been great. Shamsi – we are trying to use him differently, using him at the death and he’s doing it well. Spinners have been good. Nice to have Quinny back, nice to see him smile. He’s a big player for me, he’s a big player for the team, his energy and his experience helps us a lot.

Losing skipper, KL Rahul said:

It was a nice game. There’s so much to learn. We started off really well, we couldn’t get wickets in the middle. We’ll look to see how we get wickets in the middle overs and stop the opposition. The middle-order couldn’t get going. We were on par for the first 20-25 overs of the game. I thought we would chase it down easily but SA bowled really well and got crucial wickets. I didn’t bat after the 20th over, I don’t know if it changed drastically. Virat and Shikhar told that it was a good wicket to bat on, you just had to spend some time in the middle, unfortunately we couldn’t get the partnership going. They did really well, they put pressure on the bowlers and we couldn’t get those wickets in the middle. 290+ was 20 runs extra, but we just needed more partnerships in the middle. Every game is important for us, we all want to go out there and give our best performances. We haven’t played one-day cricket for a while, we have the WC in mind and we want to get the best XI on the park. We’ll make mistakes but we’ll learn from them

Player of the match, Rassie van der Dussen said:

The key for me was to keep the intensity and up the intensity. I went in and I knew I had to go to my sweeps and reverse-sweeps and put the pressure back on their spinners. It was important to show intent from the start. We got some momentum and put on a good score. Coming in today, we were in a bit of pressure. You need to stand up as a batter, two high-pressure chases in the Test, we were confident as a group coming into this match. We knew we’d be in a good position if we could post 280+. When Shikhar and Virat were there, they were putting us under a bit of pressure. As soon as we got those two wickets, a new batter needs time to find his feet. Not the ideal last 10 overs, hopefully we can be more clinical in the future. We’ve been on a long journey with this team. We’ve put a lot of hard work in and had a lot of good chats. I think it’s coming through.