Southampton: Powered by Rohit Sharma’s unbeaten ton, India announced themselves on the World Cup stage with a routine six-wicket win over hapless South Africa side at the Rose Bowl Stadium here on Wednesday. 

With the win, India opened their account in the points table, while for South Africa; just as ‘Murphy’s law’ states, “Anything that can go wrong is going wrong.”

Jasprit Bumrah (2-35) and Yuzvendra Chahal (4-51) with the ball and Rohit Sharma (122 not out) with the bat were instrumental in India’s win as the proteas rather worryingly, folded into another submissive display.

Winning the toss and batting first, the South African top-order suffered a collapse before recovering to score 227 runs for the loss of nine wickets after skipper Faf du Plessis won the toss and elected to bat.

In return, India chased it down with six wickets to spare and 15 balls still remaining to be played, to notch up their first win of the Cricket World Cup 2019. 
Already smarting from two defeats last week, South Africa has now lost three back-to-back matches for the first time in the open era. Their batting performance, was the next chapter in a World Cup story that has still not got out of first gear.

Brisk start
India’s bowling spearhead Jasprit Bumrah rattled South Africa with two wickets in quick time before Yuzvendra Chahal struck four blows to add to South Africa’s woes. For the third match running, the South African batting looked out of sorts, while the Indian opening spell of world’s No 1 bowler Bumrah’s was a telling one, in which he hit top speeds and found movement.

His first wicket was Hashim Amla, who in the fourth over was forced to defend a delivery that got big on him and took the edge to second slip where Rohit Sharma held a neat low catch.

Bhuvneshwar Kumar was also probing, if lower on speed, and hit lovely lengths from which Faf du Plessis and Rassie van der Dussen had to be watchful. Bhuvneshwar’s first spell read 5-0-20-0—on other days, he would have had a wicket to show for.

Watchful skipper
At the end of the Powerplay, South Africa were 34/2. In this time, India bowled as many as 42 dot balls. In the next six overs, South Africa scored 31 runs, as du Plessis and van der Dussen scampered and edged their way along to a semblance of confidence.

Their stand of 54 was snapped by Chahal, who had van der Dussen (22) bowled around the legs. Du Plessis in specific was very watchful to begin with. As he looked to be dragging his side out of danger, he was deceived by a flipper from Chahal in the same over as van der Dussen was dismissed.

The consolidation
Later, Miller and Phehlukwayo tried to rebuild with a 46-run stand for the sixth wicket when Chahal gave a double breakthrough yet again. Miller hit one straight back to the leg-spinner in just the second ball of his second spell, while Phehlukwayo was stumped trying to charge down and slog in vain four overs later. 

he total would have read substantially less, too, had all-rounder Chris Morris and tail-ender Kagiso Rabada not equalled South Africa’s highest seventh-wicket partnership in World Cup cricket.

Chahal’s figures were spoilt only by a couple of late sixes from Chris Morris.

Chasing moderate 228, India’s top order faced a feisty opening burst from Kagiso Rabada. In his first over, Rabada had Shikhar Dhawan fending awkwardly to point and edging to du Plessis at second slip where a tough chance was grassed. In his second, Rabada squared up Rohit with a ripper and then cracked Dhawan’s bat with a pacy yorker. In the middle-overs though, Rohit Sharma shared useful partnerships with KL Rahul (85 runs for the third wicket) and MS Dhoni (74 runs for the fourth wicket) to take India closer to the target.