Kagiso Rabada and Chris Morris took the fight to India with both bat and ball but in the end, the sub-continent giants cruised to a comfortable six-wicket victory over South Africa with 15 balls to spare in the ICC World Cup at Southampton on Wednesday.
It meant that India kicked off their campaign with a convincing win while the Proteas have now lost three out of three and need to unleash a winning run in their remaining six matches.
Morris (42 off 34 balls, 2 sixes and a four) and Rabada (a career-best 31 not out off 35 balls, 2 fours) gave the Proteas something to bowl at with their eighth-wicket stand of 66 off 62 balls after a top-order collapse had seen them subside to 135/6 with all their specialist batsmen back in the pavilion.
Rabada and Morris then put tremendous determination into their bowling effort under conditions that offered assistance to the seamers in the first half of both innings.
But the Proteas below par score of 227/9 was never going to be quite enough.
The Proteas went into the match with both their specialist spinners but Imran Tahir and Tabraiz Shamsi were not able to exert anything like the same influence as their Indian counterparts, conceding 112 runs in their combined 19 overs without reward.
– African News Agency (ANA)
