South Africa defeated India by 48 runs by Duckworth-Lewis method in the rain-interrupted fourth ODI at the St George’s Park, Port Elizabeth.
South Africa won the toss and elected to bat first. The openers put on 57 runs on a slow pitch before Graeme Smith (18) fell to Ashish Nehra. Hashim Amla started slowly but once he set himself up, he was unstoppable. He made 64 runs from 69 balls that included eight boundaries. Amla added 49 runs in quick time with Morne van Wyk (15) who returned to international cricket after a gap of three years.
Some hasty running between the wickets and tight bowling from the Indian part-time bowlers saw South Africa loose four wickets for 12 runs. JP Duminy and Johan Botha then combined to add 70 runs for the sixth wicket. Botha scored 44 runs before he was out to give Yuvraj Singh his third wicket. Duminy then added a further 54 runs with Robin Petersen to take the score to 265. Duminy scored 71 runs with two fours and a six. This is his third 50+ score of the series.
India got off to horrible start losing Rohit Sharma (1) early in the innings. Parthiv Patel (11) and Yuvraj Singh (12) too perished soon after and India were struggling at 49/3. Virat Kohli and Suresh Raina (20) then added 63 runs for the fourth wicket in 12 overs. Raina once again failed to convert his start and was out stumped off Petersen.
India lost three quick wickets for just 16 runs. MS Dhoni (2) and Yusuf Pathan (2) got out cheaply today. Virat Kohli scored an undefeated 87 runs from just 92 balls on a pitch where other batsmen struggled to put bat to ball. His innings included seven fours and two sixes.
At 142/6, with Kohli and Harbhajan at the crease, a victory was still a possibility but the rain interruption saw the match being called off and South Africa won the match by 48 runs by D/L method. For South Africa, Lonwabo Tsotsobe (2/25) and Petersen (2/46) took two wickets each. The teams will now head to Centurion where they will play the decider on Sunday.
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