In Stats: Bumrah, Jadeja, Ashwin Turn The Tide; Knock Out No1 Team

India bowled the equivalent of 24 maiden overs.

Virat Kohli’s team will next face Bangladesh in the semis. (Photo: AP)

A clinical 8-wicket victory over the world’s number one ODI team and India have marched into the semi-finals of the 2017 Champions Trophy. In a do-or-die contest at the Oval in London, India needed only 44.3 overs to bowl out South Africa for 191 after which their batsmen chased down the total in just 38 overs.

(Read: India Knock Out South Africa, Reach Champions Trophy Semi-Finals)

India, after opting to field, clawed their way into the game after South Africa’s openers had given the team a solid start. Though Quinton de Kock and Hashim Amla batted together for 17.3 overs, at no stage in their partnership did they look fully in command of the proceedings.

Barring one over from Hardik Pandya which went for 10 runs, the Indian bowlers were generally tidy and disciplined and kept a check on the flow of runs.

(Read: Sehwag, Harbhajan, Kaif Celebrate India’s Win on Twitter)

(Photo: The Quint/Rahul Gupta)

Bhuvneshwar Kumar was disciplined with the new ball as usual, conceding only 14 runs in the four overs he bowled to the South African openers.

Jasprit Bumrah was given the new ball at the other end and the 23-year old impressed with his control over the ball and the areas he bowled in. There’s a world of a difference between bowling with the new ball and bowling with the old ball, but Bumrah adapted to the role of bowling with the new ball brilliantly and kept the runs down.

(Photo: The Quint/Rahul Gupta)

Bumrah’s performance against South Africa needs to be applauded, especially if you consider that he has generally been used as a change bowler and was under pressure coming into this match; he had not picked up a wicket in the previous two matches and came in for plenty of punishment in the defeat to Sri Lanka.

But on Sunday morning at The Oval, he was outstanding; after a miserly first spell of 4-0-14-0 – in which he bowled varying lengths and kept the batsmen guessing all the time, he returned to bowl four more overs, eventually finishing with figures of 8-0-28-2.

South Africa’s Spectacular Collapse

It was a stunning turnaround of events for South Africa; they lost their first wicket at the score 76, to Ravichandran Ashwin playing his first match of the tournament. Quinton de Kock was dismissed when the score was 116, after which the Proteas reached 140 without any further damage.

Then came the collapse – triggered by the consecutive-overs run outs of AB de Villiers and David Miller; the Proteas lost 8 for 52 in a period of 16.3 overs to be bowled out or 191.

(Photo: The Quint/Rahul Gupta)

Jadeja Flips The Page Too

Ravindra Jadeja had a forgettable game against Sri Lanka; the left-arm spinner came in for plenty of criticism after he conceded 52 runs in his six overs. But against South Africa, the left-arm spinner flipped over from that poor page and did what he is best at; he attacked the stumps all the time, didn’t offer the batsmen any freebies, and kept the pressure at his end.

Of the 10 bowlers who bowled in the match, Jadeja was the only one to not concede a boundary.

(Photo: The Quint/Rahul Gupta)

King Kohli Finishes The Job

A target of 192 was never going to test India – definitely not when you have a certain ‘King of run-chases’ Virat Kohli in the batting line-up. Rohit Sharma threw his wicket away in the sixth over and that brought Kohli to the crease. The Indian captain lived up to his reputation of mastering run-chases and polished off the chase on this occasion too.

He stitched together a 128-run partnership with Shikhar Dhawan and remained unbeaten at the end. Virat now averages an incredible 92.80 in successful run-chases in ODIs.

(Photo: The Quint/Rahul Gupta)

With the win, India are now all but assured of finishing on top of Group B, booking a date with Bangladesh in the second semi-final on Thursday.