A beautiful half-century from Stuart Binny and brilliant spin bowling spells from Rahul Sharma and Pragyan Ojha helped India Legends beat South Africa Legends by 61 runs in Saturday’s Road Safety World Series opener. India has made a great start to their Road Safety World Series campaign with this all-round show. South Africa on the other hand has a lot to solve if they want to move forward.
In pursuit of 218, Andrew Puttick and Morne from Wyk South Africa Legends get off to a good start. Spinner Rahul Sharma gave India a breakthrough by trapping Van Wyk lbw for 26 of 24 balls.
Soon Pragyan sent Ojha Puttick away for 23 of 24 balls as well, with Sachin Tendulkar taking the catch. South Africa Legends was currently 2/58.
South Africa continued to lose wickets to Indian spin, with Ojha trapping Alviro Petersen for just 10 after being stopped by Naman Ojha. Then Henry Davids’ wicket was taken by Yuvraj. Davids could only score six points.
More than halfway through the game, South Africa was 4/90. Rahul Sharma got his second wicket after the sacking of Jacques Rudolph for 16 runs off 14 balls.
Pacer Munaf Patel joined the party, clearing all-rounder Johan Botha’s wickets for just eight runs. South Africa Legends continued to struggle at 106/6.
Captain Jonty Rhodes tried to hold one end steady. Johan van der Wath and Eddie Leie scored ducks, caught by Rahul and pacer Irfan Pathan respectively. The score was 124/8 for South Africa in 17.2 overs.
Munaf got his second wicket in the match and sacked Makhaya Ntini for six. This left SA at 142/9 with one left to hit an unattainable 76 points.
South Africa ended their innings on 156/9 and gave up fourteen runs in the final. Captain Jonty finished as his side’s top scorer with 38 from 27 balls. India Legends won the match by 61 runs.
Rahul (3/17) and Pragyan Ojha (2/32) damaged their spin while Munaf Patel also took two wickets. Irfan and Yuvraj each got one wicket.
India Legends chose to bat first and got off to a good start. Openers Naman Ojha and Sachin Tendulkar played some nice shorts to the delight of nostalgic fans. However, South African pacemaker Makhaya Ntini ended the 46-run tie in just 5.2 overs by sacking Tendulkar for just 16 from 15 balls after being caught by Johan Botha.
Ojha was soon sacked by Johan van der Wath for 21 from 18 balls, with India Legends 52/2 in 6.1 overs.
Then Suresh Raina, who recently retired from all formats of the game, became the center of the fans’ attention and easily scored points. Stuart Binny also fired quick runs from the other side. They put in an enjoyable 64-run score, which ended with Eddie Leie dismissing Raina for 33 from 22 balls. Following this, a struggling Yuvraj Singh also fell cheaply at just 6 out of 8 balls, bringing India down to 129/4 in 14.3 overs.
This brought hard-hitter Yusuf Pathan to the fold. After his arrival, India Legends’ scoring percentage started to skyrocket, with both batters taking the air route. Binny also completed his half century.
By the time 20 overs were completed, India had scored a massive 217/4.
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Binny scored a brilliant 82 from 42 balls with five limits and six sixes. Yusuf Pathan also brought back his powerful avatar to hit 35* from just 15 balls with a boundary and four huge sixes.
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