ICC World Cup 2015: 5 mistakes that South Africa made against India

Much to everybody’s surprise India pulled off a clinical performance to clinch a very important victory against South Africa in a high prestige encounter in the league stage of the World Cup 2015. India outplayed South Africa in all departments including fielding and came out triumphant for the first time in the four meetings they have had in the World Cups.India were as good as they could be on 22nd May. But there were certain mistakes that South Africa committed that eventually led to their defeat. Without taking anything away from India on this special win, let’s take a look at where did the Proteas go wrong:

#1 Team Selection

South Africa chose to leave Farhaan Behardien out of the playing 11 and replaced him with Parnell. It is easy to criticize something once the decision goes wrong. But let’s try to find out the reason behind this selection and then we will see why does it have to do a bit more with misreading the opposition and less with the strategy.

South Africa chose to go with an extra specialist bowler leaving a long tail of Parnell, Philander, Tahir, Morkel and Steyn. Sourth Africa assumed their batting would be safe even with one less batsman and would not collapse twice, after Zimbabwe, especially against a bowling group that has been ridiculed to be among the worst leading up to the World Cup. The plan was to shut India out in the batting department and then maneuver against the weak bowling attack.

Philanders injury did not help. The only replacement, Parnell, cost them 85 in 9 which eventually helped India reach 307. And to their amazement, Indian bowlers performed even more splendidly just when we thought the show against Pakistan could be their best of the tournament.

South Africa’s assumption that their batting would not fail and Indian bowlers would not come good, twice, was the mistake that cost them dearly.