World Cup 2019, India vs South Africa: Top 5 performers of the match
India have started their World Cup 2019 campaign in emphatic fashion, defeating South Africa by 6 wickets at Southampton. Opting to bat first, South Africa were hoping to turn their fortunes around in this match after two consecutive defeats. But they struggled to get going throughout the innings and ended up scoring 227/9 in 50 overs.
India too struggled in the early overs. However, a patient knock from Rohit Sharma and able support from the middle order ensured victory by 6 wickets for Virat Kohli's men.
Despite being a relatively low-scoring match, some outstanding performances from the players of both teams made the contest a treat to watch. Here are the top 5 performers of the match who displayed brilliant performances for their respective teams:
1. Rohit Sharma
Rohit Sharma's knock of 122 runs off 144 balls was undoubtedly the best performance of the match. Even though it turned out to be the slowest hundred of the career so far, Rohit's innings was the backbone of the Indian batting in the chase.
After the departure of Shikhar Dhawan (8 runs off 12 balls) and Virat Kohli (18 runs off 34 balls), Rohit took on the responsibility of building the innings with the support of the middle order, and finally took his team over the finish line.
2. Yuzvendra Chahal
Just when South Africa had started to recover from the early blows, the Indian skipper brought Yuzvendra Chahal into the attack. Chahal took little time to run through South African middle order and scalped the important wickets of Rassie van der Dussen and Faf du Plessis in the same over, bringing India back into the game.
Chahal ended up with 4 wickets for 51 runs in his quota of 10 overs, making his World Cup debut a memorable one.
3. Chris Morris
The South African all-rounder was outstanding with both bat and ball. He came out to rescue his team when they were reeling at 135/6 in 35.3 overs; it was Morris who shouldered the responsibility of taking forward the South African innings by building partnerships with Andile Phehlukwayo (34 runs off 61 balls) and Kagiso Rabada (31 runs off 35 balls).
He was good with the ball too. In his quota of 10 overs which included 3 maidens, he gave away just 36 runs and scalped 1 wicket.
Even though Morris played his heart out, he was unfortunate to see his team ending up on the losing side.
4. Kagiso Rabada
The South African pace sensation made his mark in the match in both the innings. He played a crucial knock of 31 runs off 35 balls and built a partnership of 66 off 59 with Chris Morris to take South Africa to a respectable position. While bowling too, he provided his team the early breakthrough and ended up with figures which read 10-1-39-2.
5. Jasprit Bumrah
The Indian pacer proved once again why he is the No. 1 ODI bowler in the world. His deceptive bowling left the South African batsmen clueless right from the beginning.
By providing the early breakthroughs, Bumrah set the platform for the other bowlers to continue the assault on the opposition batting lineup. His figures read 10-1-35-2, which were enough to announce his arrival in the World Cup arena.
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