Kohli hits century, India register easy win in Durban
Durban, Feb 1 (IBNS): Virat Kohli's century helped India to register an easy win against South Africa by six wickets in the first ODI match of the bilateral series here on Thursday.
The 270 runs target looked too small when Kohli was on the top of his batting.
India took just 45.3 overs to reach home.
When Kohli was dismissed, he had 112 runs against his name.
The Indian skipper was aptly supported by Ajinkya Rahane who scored 79 runs from 86 balls.
Chasing a target of 270, both openers, Rohit Sharma and Shikhar Dhawan, went out after getting starts. While Rohit was dismissed at 20 (30), Dhawan played a brazing knock of 35 runs from 29 balls.
But after the fall of the two wickets, Kohli and Rahane have put up a partnership of 189 runs.
After Rahane's and later Kohli's dismissals towards the end of the match, Hardik Pandya along with MS Dhoni finished the job for India.
Pandya and Dhoni remained unbeaten at 3 and 4 runs respectively.
Andile Phehlukwayo was the best bowler for South Africa with a figure of 2/42 in eight overs.
Earlier, boasting on a marvelous hundred by skipper Faf du Plessis, South Africa have set 270 runs as target for India in the first ODI match of the bilateral competition, which began on Thursday.
South Africa scored 269/8 in 50 overs.
Faf scored 120 runs from 112 balls.
None of the other batsmen could score a 50 in the entire innings.
Despite getting a good start in the first 15 overs, South Africa lost too many wickets to reduce to 134/5 at one stage.
Chris Morris contributed 37 runs with bat lower down the order.
Indian spin bowlers were right on top in Durban. While Kuldeep Yadav picked up 3 wickets, Yuzvendra Chahal clinched 2 wickets.
India lead six-match ODI series 1-0.
Support Our Journalism
We cannot do without you.. your contribution supports unbiased journalism
IBNS is not driven by any ism- not wokeism, not racism, not skewed secularism, not hyper right-wing or left liberal ideals, nor by any hardline religious beliefs or hyper nationalism. We want to serve you good old objective news, as they are. We do not judge or preach. We let people decide for themselves. We only try to present factual and well-sourced news.
Support objective journalism for a small contribution.
