India has won the third match of Super Eight stage against South Africa in Twenty20 World Cup 2007. The match has just ended and India defeated South Africa convincingly. With this win, India went to the top of Group E and in semifinal they will face Australia.
Indian captain Dhoni first won the toss and elected to bat. Indian batsmen were under pressure and lost 4 wickets for 64 runs at one stage. However, middle order batsman Rohit Sharma played an excellent 40 ball 52 not out with seven boundaries and two over boundaries. Indian captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni scored 45 runs facing just 33 balls. Dhoni hit four boundaries and one over boundaries. Actually, Indian batsmen played well under pressure and could put up a total of 153 runs. This was not a huge total but the pitch was a tough one to bat.
South Africa needed just 154 runs but Indian bowlers were too good for them. South Africa started in style taking 11 runs from the first over of the innings. However, within 2 runs, South Africa lost three important wickets in which two were gone in the second over as Rudra Pratap Singh took the wickets of Captain Graeme Smith and Herschelle Gibbs. South Africa started to lose wickets and within 32 runs they lost 5 wickets. Actually South African players could not play with their plans. When they lost five wickets they could target 126 runs that was the minimum requirement to get into the semi final. However, I think they could not make the right decision in the right situation. They could not recover from this shock and in the end they lost the match and were out of Twenty20 World Cup.
Mark Boucher and Morkel showed some resistance while making an 69 run partnership. Both Boucher and Morkel scored 36 each. At the end, South Africa is now out of the tournament. It is really shocking that losing only one match they have to be out of the Twenty20 world cup in their home soil. On the other hand, New Zealand who lost two matches so far in the tournament will enter in to the semi final round.
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