Kohli, Gaikwad tons in vain as Markram leads SA to victory

Visitors level three match ODI series 1-1 by winning the high- scoring game in Raipur by 4 wickets with 4 balls to spare

- Ashish Magotra

The loss was ‘dew’, especially when one considers how close South Africa ran India in the first ODI at Ranchi. Early wickets had then done the trick for the hosts but in the absence of those at Raipur on Wednesday, classy knocks by Aiden Markram (110), Matthew Breetzke (68) and Dewald Brevis (54) helped the visitors level the series and take it into the decider.

In a way, India might want to put the defeat down to luck. They were put in to bat after losing the toss for the 20th consecutive time in One-Day International (ODI) cricket. The odds of that happening are lin 1,048,576 i.e 0.00000095. And given the kind of conditions the match was played in, the toss turned out to be the key.

India didn’t do much wrong while batting. They put on 358/5 with valuable contributions from Virat Kohli (102), Ruturaj Gaikwad (105) and KL Rahul (66 not out).

If anything, they might have missed a chance of batting South Africa out of the match by slowing down during the last 10 overs of their innings.

In reply, South Africa were solid. They never let the pressure of a big run chase get to them, and even though things got a little tight in the end due to some mindless wickets and Tony de Zorzi’s pulled hamstring, they still won with four balls and four wickets to spare.