South Africa vs India 5th ODI – Who Said What

Port Elizabeth didn’t have a great history of the chasing team. The last two scores batting second were well inside 200 but when given an opportunity Aiden Markram still wanted to bowl first. Virat Kohli was pretty pleased to accept that given the composition of his team and the tendency of the opposition to crumble under pressure.

Rohit Sharma and Shikhar Dhawan walked out to take guard and showed just the right intent. While Dhawan was at his positive best, Sharma took time. Kagiso Rabada and South Africa succeeded in sending the left-hander back early today. But his partner continued and didn’t settle for anything less but a hundred; his 17th in ODIs.

This was his first knock of substance on the tour. Having failed in the Tests and the first four ODIs Rohit was under serious pressure, but he responded with a hundred and anchored the Indian innings. Towards the end of the first 50 overs it was evident that the pitch was getting slower and scoring runs would just get tougher as the evening progressed. India posted 274/7, Lungi Ngidi was the pick of the Proteas bowlers as he claimed a 4-wicket haul.

South Africa had a stable opening partnership with Hashim Amla and Markram opting for the cautious approach. But the skipper once again was dismissed in the first spell and Amla had a lot to do but no partners who wished to hang on at the crease for longer. JP Duminy and AB de Villiers were dismissed cheaply.

David Miller and Heinrich Klaasen tried but their attempt wasn’t enough and the middle order and the batsmen who walked in later weren’t qualified enough to tackle the Indian wrist spinners and were bowled out for 201 as Kuldeep Yadav and Yuzvendra Chahal shared 6 wickets.

Virat Kohli said:

Very pleased. Another convincing win for us and I thought the guys really got stuck in, with the bat, with the ball and on the field as well. Only one team has the pressure of losing the series right from the start and that was South Africa. Right from the third Test in Jo’burg, it has been a great time for us. It has been a collective effort from the team-mates, the support staff and everybody.

Every now and then you get an opportunity you might not click, and when this series is wrapped up we’ll look to think about what we can do to improve. 4-1 seems great at the moment and we’ll look to wrap it up well. We want to win 5-1 for sure, that doesn’t change, but there’ll be a chance for others to step in as well. The first priority is to win and that is what we’ll look to do.

Man of the Match, Rohit Sharma said:

Long time coming. I had a good time in the middle; as the game went on the wicket got slower and slower. Always a good feeling when you score a hundred and your team wins the match. We stuck to our plans and am glad it came off. I try to keep myself in the right frame of mind and it paid off.

I knew I didn’t have to change a lot and the runs would come. I kept hitting the ball well and the confidence was there that I would score. We were in a spot of bother when I got to my century and that’s why the celebrations were low key. When you get in you’ve got to make it count and unless you play a bad shot you don’t really get out. The rest of guys put in the runs in the last game and it was my day today.

Aiden Markram said:

Credit to the Indians, they played very well today. Our batting wasn’t up to scratch, and it is hard to keep up the momentum when you lose wickets in clumps. These are some quality Indian players in good form so credit to them, they nailed the execution of their plans. Lungi started off well and kept taking wickets in the middle.

After restricting them to less than they would have liked, and we were happy to chase it and we needed a few good partnerships, but that wasn’t the case. We are going to have to find a way to build partnerships just to gain some momentum and build some pressure on them. They’ve bowled well, and they have done well (the Indian spinners). Lot of pride to play for and we will look to bounce back and end the ODI series on a positive note at Centurion.