India chase well, but lose badly. Again

NAGPUR, MARCH 19: South Africa, on Sunday, salvaged some pride by narrowing the gap of their Pepsi Cup limited overs cricket series loss t...

NAGPUR, MARCH 19: South Africa, on Sunday, salvaged some pride by narrowing the gap of their Pepsi Cup limited overs cricket series loss to 3-2, thus denying India a chance to approach the Sharjah Cup with total confidence.

A high-scoring affair, it all boiled down to a wafer-thin margin of 10 runs at the VCA Stadium. The Indians, chasing 320 runs, needed 12 from as many balls but fell victim to some good fielding by the South Africans. Three Indian batsmen were caught leaden-footed by the South Africans and run out.

Sachin Tendulkar sent a full house of 35,000 into delirious raptures of Mexican waves. Losing skipper Sourav Ganguly early, Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid played comrades-in-demolition and tore the South African bowling to shreds. Tendulkar’s fifty came off 37 balls. In the process, he became only the second player in the world to have scored 9000 runs in limited overs cricket after Mohammed Azharuddin.

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Dravid blasted 79 off 70 balls (11×4), stirring up visions of an Indian victory. But this was not to be. In sight of his 26th century, Tendulkar pulled a short one off Derek Crookes to be caught by Steve Elworthy. Disaster struck again with Dravid run out at 193. The pair had by then turbo-charged a record second-wicket stand against South Africa of 180 runs. This eclipsed the previous one of Ravi Shastri and Sanjay Manjrekar who had put on 175 runs in Delhi in 1991. From then on, Indian batsmen started slipping as South Africa turned on the screws. Modest contributions from Robin Singh (29), Javagal Srinath (20) and Syed Saba Karim (22) failed to turn the tide. Two run-outs (Nikhil Chopra and Anil Kumble) and Karim’s untimely fall saw the curtains ring down on India’s hopes of putting one more across South Africa. Earlier, South Africa got off to a bad start after being put into to bat by Saurav Ganguly who won the toss thus breaking Cronje’s lucky streak with the coin. Gary Kirsten, N McKenzie and Crookes were dismissed in the space of 10 overs before Gibbs and Cronje dropped anchor. Gibbs made a sound 74 before being sent back by a direct hit from Sriram. Lance Zulu’ Klusener chose Sunday to return to form. He put on a display of awesome power and his heaves sent the ball sailing across the fences, one shot landing in the press box.New-comer Sriram failed to impress with the ball, though skipper Ganguly felt otherwise in the post-match tete-a-tete. But Sriram was athletic in his fielding, scalping Gibbs with a direct hit. Klusener remained not out on 75 besides a three-wicket haul which earned him the Man of the Match award.

SCOREBOARD :

South Africa: G Kirsten run out 1, H Gibbs run out 74, N Mckenzie c Karim b Kumble 13, D Crookes b Kumble 14, H Cronje c Dravid b Chopra 38, M Boucher c Kumble b Prasad 68, D Benkenstein b Tendulkar 24, L Klusener not out 75, P Strydom not out 0; Extras (lb1, w2, nb10) 13
Total (for 7 wickets in 50 overs) 320
Fall of wickets: 1-9, 2-42, 3-66, 4-126, 5-161, 6-205, 7-319.
Bowling: Srinath 6-0-65-0, Prasad 6-1-46-1, Kumble 10-0-61-2, Chopra 10-0-57-1, Sriram 6-0-36-0, Robin Singh 1-0-6-0, Tendulkar 10-0-31-1, Ganguly 1-0-17-0.

India: S Ganguly c Elworthy b Williams 6, S Tendulkar c Elworthy b Crookes 93, R Dravid run out 79, A Jadeja b Elworthy 10, S Sriram c Boucher b Elworthy 12, J Srinath c Strydom b Klusener 20, Robin Singh c Cronje b Klusener 29, Saba Karim c&b Klusener 22, N Chopra run out 3, A Kumble run out 5, V Prasad not out 0; Extras (b4, lb8, w14, nb5) 31
Total (all out in 48.5 overs) 310
Fall of wickets: 1-13, 2-193, 3-193, 4-214, 5-221, 6-259, 7-290, 8-304, 9-310.
Bowling: Williams 1.5-0-11-1, Crookes 10-1-69-1, McKenzie 0.1-0-0-0, Elworthy 8-0-50-2, Cronje 9.5-0-62-0, Klusener 9-0-59-3, Strydom 10-0-47-0.

Result: South Africa won by 10 runs.

Man of the Match: Lance Klusener (SA).