Munaf Patel
The 2nd ODI in Johannesburg was supposed to be a come back match for India. Where almost the entire cricket population thinks that India will be one of the front runners of the ICC Cricket World Cup this February, the Indian players was doing everything in their power to show everyone how wrong they are.
India won the toss and chose to bat first at the wanderer’s stadium, so in all likely hoods it was a positive and promising start to the match. A target of 190 was never going to be insufficient, even UAE could have considered it a beatable total. Though towards the end the South African’s had the worlds biggest and most nauseating hiccup even with the fact that India was about 20-30 runs short of a relatively fighting total, was the end what anybody could be prepared for?
The ending was as thrilling as you could hope for a regular ODI to be. Graeme Smith’s jaw must have been on the floor with how India came out of nowhere to retake the match. Half of India must have switched off the television thinking there was nothing further left to watch, boy oh boy were they wrong!
With the dismissal of David Miller by Zaheer Khan when he made 27 runs of 28 balls it was as if suddenly the Indian players were awoken from their slumber and they thought. “Hey may be we can wing it?” But it was only a matter of time before the Porky Pig from loony tunes would come out and say “that’s all folks”.
Skipper Graeme Smith made the most important contribution to his side by making 77 runs of 98 balls before he was dismissed by Munaf Patel but not before he proved exactly how ineffective the Indian bowling side was up until then.
Amla was the initial break through which was a beacon of hope at some point but proved pointless in the end, he made 4 runs of 9 balls and was dismissed by Munaf Patel.
Newbie Colin Ingram looked talented in his 25 runs of 30 balls but could not manage the Harbhajan Singh attack. AB de Villiers who had snatched the match out of India’s hands in the previous ODI was dismissed by helter skelter Ashish Nehra on just 8 runs of 13balls.
JP Duminy made only 13 runs of 19 balls was dismissed by Rohit Sharma who seems to be more of help with the ball that he is with the bat.
The tail-enders fought with rattled nerves, Johan Botha making 4 runs of 7 balls, Zaheer Khan claimed his wicket.
Dale Steyn was run out by Yuvraj Singh at a crucial stage, Morne Morkel entered the crease on his departure and everyone knows he works well under pressure. But he was caught by Yusuf Pathan on the bowling on Munaf Patel with only 2 runs left to win. Who ever was watching would have been touching wood with all hands and legs.
The last few over’s marked the come back of the Indian team with the brilliance of Munaf Patel. With one run left to win, the South Africans were cocky enough to think they could end the match in style, but it was that style that ended by chocking them with the dismissal of Wayne Parnell by Munaf Patel yet again, India winning the match by 1run with at least 10 overs left.
The Indian side didn’t have much of a contribution except for Yuvraj Singh who made 53 runs of 68 balls and skipper MS Dhoni who made 38 runs of 61 balls. Lonwabo Tsotsobe was responsible for restricting the Indian side taking 4 wickets.
The man of the match went to Munaf Patel with his 4 crucial wickets resulting in India’s victory, well deserved in deed.
It was nice to see however that on a day where the batting side failed so miserably the bowling attack helped this match be the nail biting dramatic finish it ended up becoming.
Everyone who remained hopeful till the very end would be glad they stayed up till 1:35 am and saw this match till the very end.
Finally the next few matches will be interesting to watch, but this match will take a while to get over.
Tags: 2nd ODI, Cricket, Graeme Smith, Harbhajan Singh, India, Johannesburg, MS Dhoni, Munaf Patel, ODI Cricket, ODI Series, South Africa, Yuvraj Singh
