And now spin overcomes India!

South Africa ensured that India will not go home even with a single win by beating them by 12 runs in the last Super Eights game at Trent Bridge. With the game having no bearing on who enters the semi-finals, with South Africa having qualified for the knock-out stage already and India knocked out, South Africa decided to rest Jacques Kallis, who seemed to be suffering from a back injury.

The Proteas won the toss and decided to bat first on an increasingly deteriorating wicket. For some reason, M.S.Dhoni had decided to go in with three pace bowlers, but after an initial burst of a few overs, he did not bowl them more than one over in the end, and had five spinners operating for him.
Herschelle Gibbs was consumed by R.P.Singh early, but Graeme Smith and A.B. de Villiers went for their shots and raised their fifty in only the 8th over. However, once Smith left, trying to slog Harbhajan Singh out of the park, the batting team foundered against some sustained pressure by the spinners.

De Villiers did get to his fifty, but at the other end, the ball did not come on to the bat as well as the batting team would have liked, as spinners bowled 14 runs between them and conceded only 79 runs to stem the flow. A last over that went for 11 runs from Zaheer Khan took the score on to 130 in their twenty overs and it did not look like it was going to enough.

Team India replied well with an opening stand of 48 runs in six overs, but their story wasn’t too different from South Africa’s. The spinners came on and had an immediate hold on the Indian batsmen. Gautam Gambhir fell while trying to hit Johan Botha, as did the woefully out of form, Suresh Raina, and when Rohit Sharma also fell to J.P.Duminy, it looked like the familiar Indian collapse!
M.S.Dhoni was run-out due to a misunderstanding with Yuvraj Singh, while Yusuf Pathan lasted all of two deliveries and left without opening his account. Harbhajan and Yuvi were involved in a partnership that took the team close but not close enough as Botha came back to get rid of Bhajji. With that and Yuvraj’s wicket went India’s chances as they crashed to a 12-run loss.

AB de Villiers’ half century won him the man-of-the-match award.