Melbourne - The drums were beating, trumpets blowing, flags waving and the bright lights of this storied old venue shone upon the some of the stars of the game on Sunday night.
“IND-YAAA, IND-YAAA!” the majority chanted.
The lights shone brighter, the chants grew louder. By the time this much anticipated match had ended when Imran Tahir was trapped lbw by Ravi Ashwin, all AB de Villiers, wanted to do, was lock himself in his room and turn out the lights.
“For now I just want to go and feel sad in my room for a while,” De Villiers mused afterwards. This was a stage - with an audience numbering 86876 - in which he had wanted himself and his team to perform. They failed. Badly.
In contrast, India’s performance represented a statement of intent. Laughed off for the last few weeks by many on their tour of Australia, which for them started in November, this performance gave credence to the BCCI’s marketing slogan - “We won’t give it back!”
Indeed, if South Africa or any of the other challengers are going to take the World Cup from MS Dhoni’s team, they will require grit, skill and plenty of street smarts. South Africa patently showed none of that here last night.
India out-batted them, which could be expected, out-bowled them too, but most unusually perhaps out-fielded them. In 20 years of matches between the two countries, has that ever been the case?
“It’s a big knock for us to get beaten by 130 runs, almost embarrassing,” said De Villiers. “You never want to lose by that amount of runs, you want to be a competitive team, feel like you are always in the game, like you have a chance to win games. We pride ourselves on that, it didn’t happen today.”
India’s winning of the toss was certainly a key to the outcome – though certainly not the overwhelming reason for their comprehensive triumph. De Villiers and his counterpart Dhoni acknowledged that the surface was two paced, but it was India’s bowlers – with the surface having quickened up under the lights – who made better use of the conditions.
“It was a good wicket in the afternoon. It took a bit of wear and tear and got a bit two paced. It did become bit more difficult in the evening, I found it quite difficult. It’s not often that a South African team struggles against short pitched deliveries - but it was two paced; one skids on, one got stuck in the wicket, which made it difficult to get on top of it,” said the Proteas captain.
South Africa’s bowling was shoddy; the injury to Vernon Philander meaning De Villiers had to make more use of Wayne Parnell, more than perhaps he wanted. “His discipline was poor, the no-balls were unacceptable, we’ve spoken about that at length in meetings. The dropped catch didn’t do him any favours,” De Villiers said of the left-arm seamer, who came in for Farhaan Behardien yesterday.
Parnell actually started well with the ball and should have had Shikar Dhawan caught in his second over. Hashim Amla dropped an easy chance at gully when the opener had 53 and when a run out of Dhawan was missed when he was on 55 in the following over by JP Duminy, India and Dhawan - who made a fine 137 - rapidly gained the ascendancy.
In contrast to South Africa, the Indians were sharp in the field. They produced two stunning efforts to run out De Villiers and Dave Miller, which angered the South African skipper.
“The run outs are absolutely unacceptable in the top six, you can’t afford those kind of things. The top six is there to win games for you. It could have been my night or David’s night tonight and we both sat on the side of the field not even having been dismissed by a bowler, which is very disappointing.”
De Villiers’ wicket was the start of a debilitating collapse - from 108/2 in the 23rd over to 177 all out in 41st, they lost 69/8 in just under 18 overs.
Coming off the back of a comprehensive win over arch |rivals Pakistan, this performance showed India are certainly here to play and have they’ve now jumped ahead of South Africa as one of the main contenders for the title, for whom this, as their captain said, was a “dark” day.
Cape Argus