Both Shikhar Dhawan and Dale Steyn have been IPL teammates for a while. The fact that they know each other so well, it had to translate into one of them benefiting from the India-South Africa match of the World Cup in Melbourne on Sunday.
In the end, it was Indian opener, Dhawan, who made the most of the opposition. He not only scored a magnificent century, but also stamped his authority over the Proteas bowling attack, thanks to skipper MS Dhoni who reposed his faith despite his recent failures in ODI and Test cricket.
Dhawan was in a different zone when India won the toss and opted to bat. A horrible mix-up which saw Rohit Sharma getting run out pushed India to get a sedate start to their innings. Steyn, for example, was quite effective with the new-ball and kept the Indian batting guessing.
However, Dhawan was watchful and showed great sense of maturity to see off Steyn’s disciplined opening spell. Just when the South African fast bowler was taken off the attack, the Indian pair of Dhawan and Virat Kohli started to open up a little bit.
Dhawan, in particular, was extremely confident while executing his strokes and never looked in a hurry. Interestingly, when he has scored a hundred for India, his team has never lost a match. This probably was there in Dhawan’s mind when he crossed his fifty-run mark.
In between he was lucky to have been dropped by Hashim Amla off Wayne Parnell. But that is a part of the game and you need luck to succeed in big games.
In the beginning, if India were scoring at slightly above three runs per over, it went up to above four in the middle overs and in the batting power-play it went above seven runs per over. But towards the end, India could have gone a little further if the dismissals of Dhawan, Suresh Raina and Ravindra Jadeja wouldn’t have happened in quick succession.
There was a moment in the middle overs when South Africa could have made a comeback into the match after Kohli got out. But Ajinkya Rahane too joined the run-feast with some lusty hits. He did what Raina had done in the Pakistan match.
Off 63 balls, the Mumbai middle-order batsman made 70 with three sixes to his credit. He was the game changer and for a change, the South African bowlers were treated like club bowlers.
Both Dhawan and Rahane completed their 100 runs for the third-wicket partnership off just 83 balls and this goes to show the kind of batting the Indian team did. Dhawan struck two sixes off Steyn and Morne Morkel and at one point of time, Rahane was outscoring him. The momentum created by Dhawan was such that even a tail-ender like Mohit Sharma could have scored a quick fire 50.
Dhawan was so overpowering today that he scored the highest run by an individual against South Africa in all World Cup matches. He knew that Steyn was the backbone of South African bowling and if you can hit him at some point of the match or not give away easy wickets to him, the bowling attack could be dominated. This strategy helped Indian immensely.
Dhawan got out when on 137 but by the time he left the crease, India were already placed very comfortable. But that delivery that dismissed Dhawan appeared to be a no-ball, but no questions were raised by the umpires.
Surprisingly, this was not the same South African team, which is known in the circuit. That is because there were misfields, dropped catches and over throws during the Indian innings. Towards the end, Dhoni too showed his class by hitting three consecutive boundaries off Parnell.
