It was the second day of the CWC 2015. A much awaited high profile contest was to be fought between India and Pakistan, which was supposed to be a closely fought contest and turned out to be a damp squib instead. The other contest between the African neighbours which was supposed to be a one sided affair, turned out to be a keenly contested match.
As on day one, even on day two, during both the games, team batting second had to chase 300+ target. But unlike day one, this day we had three batsmen scoring centuries. David Miller and JP Duminy scored unbeaten centuries with scores 138*(92) and 115* (100) respectively. The other centurion of the day was Virat Kohli with a score of 107 (126). Incidentally he became the first Indian to score a century against Pakistan in a world cup.
To add to the above, there were four 100+ partnerships on the day. Virat Kohli and Shikhar Dhawan put 129 for the second wicket. Then Virat Kohli added 110 with Raina for the third wicket. Chamu Chibhabha and Hamilton Masakadza put together 105 for second wicket and created some ruffles among the Protean attack. But the best partnership was between South African David Miller and JP Duminy when they put together a world record score of 256* for the fifth wicket. This partnership was a very significant one as they came together when South Africa was reeling for 83/4 in 20.2 overs. From there they took South Africa to a formidable score of 339/4.
These days when the game is highly biased towards the batsman, this day seemed to be a day when bowler were looking to prove some point. Ashwin in his spell of 8 overs bowled 3 maidens. Tinashe Panyangara and Tendai Chatara bowled 2 and 1 maiden respectively in the initial phase of South African innings to choke them. Apart from these Morne Morkel and Mohammad Shami also bowled one maiden each. So in total there were 8 maidens bowled during the day.
After the first day, there was another five-for in the CWC15 when Sohail Khan dismissed Dhoni and Rahane on the consecutive balls of his last over. However he could not complete his hat-trick. He finished with a figure of 5/55. Incidentally Sohail Khan was playing his first international since September 2011. Wahab Riaz who took a five-for in the semi-final against India in CWC11 could not repeat his feat but finished with an economical figure of 1/49.
76-run is a big margin for a victory and is the biggest victory that India had against Pakistan in the world cup in terms of runs. It could have been even bigger but for the exemplary death-bowling (last 5 overs) by Pakistan and Misbhah. In spite of Harris Sohail's dismissal in 18th over Pakistan with a sound platform in place, Pakistan were still cruising with Misbah and Ahmed Shehzad at crease but all of a sudden hell broke lose and they lost 3 wickets for for 1 run in space of 9 balls. Misbah-ul-Haq was left stranded and found himself in a familiar position (without any support) as in the semi-final of last edition against the same opponent. During the Pakistan bowling, they conceded only 27 runs in the last 5 overs and took 5 wickets to restrict India to a 300 which could have been easily a 320 or 330.
Pakistan made their task difficult by missing the chances that came their way. Yasir Shah could not hold onto a running chance at deep midwicket when Virat was at 3 and Umar Akmal dropped Virat when he was at 76. There was an instance when they missed two chances to runout Dhoni and Jadeja. Jadeja, after hitting straight to Afridi at cover did not run but Dhoni took off instantly for the run but Afridi went for a direct hit as opposed giving it back to the bowler. In the process he missed, now Jadeja crossed for the same run and Yasir Shah tried the direct hit, and he too missed. This looked really comical.
Perhaps the big occasion got on to the nerves of Irfan. He was warned twice for running onto the danger area and thus had to bowl around the wicket. Because of this forced move, he was not effective anymore.
In the other match South Africa defeated Zimbabwe by 62 runs but the match was closer than the margin of victory suggests. In spite of South Africa being one of the contenders of the cup, in this particular match which was considered game between unequal, South Africa could dictate terms only in the last 15 overs of each innings. The remaining part of the match belonged to Zimbabwe. Just to indicate the closeness, South Africa were 262 and Zimbabwe were at 264 at the end of 46th over. The difference was the 48th over in the South African innings and Zimbabwe were 8 wickets down in their innings.
Batting first South Africa were 83 for 4 in 20.2 overs and later were 151/4 in 35 overs. Zimbabwe bowled 23 overs for under six. In the middle overs (18.2 - 29.3) South African batsmen did not score a single boundary.
Call it lack of experience or nerves, Zimbabwean bowlers simply lost the plot in the last 15 overs, the worst over being the 48th over by Solomon Mire that went: 6 4 4 6 4 6 - that's more than South Africa made in the first 10 overs. The damage inflicted by Miller and Duminy was such that Zimbabwe conceded 146 runs in the last 10 overs whereas they had conceded only 28 in the first 10 overs.
Similarly in batting, facing the likes of Dale Steyn, Morne Morkel and Vernon Philander, Zimbabwe were making a fight of the chase having scored 214 for 3 from 36 overs. After the end of the drinks break Brendon Taylor was dismissed softly and post that Zimbabwe batting collapsed and were dismissed for 277. Zimbabwe had won their world cup encounter against the Proteas in 1999 but this time they could not repeat their heroics, though they seemed very much capable of doing it.
With a game involving South Africa, there will not be any dearth of exceptional fielding and AB endorsed it taking couple of catches and effecting a run out through direct hit. But there is another instant in the match where again AB was involved which is worth mentioning. AB when batting lifted the ball high over long off and it seemed destined for a six before Ervine skirting the boundary rope intervened. Ervine took a one-handed catch and when he saw his momentum would carry him over the boundary, he threw the ball back up in the air, he then went out of the boundary, stepped back onto the playing field, and collected it with both hands to dismiss AB.
There is an interesting statistic worth mentioning. Hamilton Masakadza has played 144 ODIs before playing his first World Cup game against South Africa. Similarly in the match between India and Pakistan, Ravindra Jadeja and Rohit Sharma made their World Cup debuts after having played 111 and 127 ODIs respectively.
It would be an exaggeration to say that South Africa survived a scare but at the same time it is definitely a wake up call for them. Zimbabwe on the other hand must be proud of what they achieved out of this match and at the same time ruing what they could not achieve. Zimbabwe meet UAE in their next encounter and this performance should inspire them. At the same time, they cannot take UAE lightly. Pakistan has a lot of introspection to do before they meet West Indies in their next encounter, right from the combination to the application of plan on the field of play. India looked like a well oiled unit and if they perform with the same intensity and approach they can take themselves far ahead in the tournament. Their next game against South Africa is very crucial and potentially will determine the pool topper.
India - Pakistan encountered was witnessed by 41,587 passionate fans at Adelaide Oval and India - South Africa match is at MCG which has twice the capacity of Adelaide Oval and it is sold out.
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