CHENNAI: A Yashasvi Jaiswal century, fifties from Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli headlined India's clinical performance as they beat South Africa by nine wickets to seal the ODI series 2-1 in Visakhapatnam on Saturday.
It was a day of many first for India as well. It started with skipper KL Rahul winning the toss in an ODI for India for the first time since the 2023 ODI World Cup semifinal. And ended with Jaiswal scoring his maiden ODI hundred — an unbeaten 116 from 121 balls — showing why he perhaps deserves a place in the ODI set up.
Between these two events there were a lot of ebbs and flows as well. Take for example how South Africa were cruising at 234/5 after 38 overs on the back of a Quinton de Kock century. With Dewald Brevis and Marco Jansen going for their shots, they looked set to post another 350-plus total in the series.
However, they lost the plot in a span of three deliveries from Kuldeep Yadav in the 39th over. First Brevis took the spinner on only to be caught and two balls later, Jansen followed suit. From thereon, they never really recovered. From looking dangerous enough to add more than 100 runs in the last 12 overs, the visitors folded for 270 in 47.5 overs.
If Kuldeep set off the trigger, Prasidh Krishna, who went for a lot of runs early in the innings, came back stronger to take four wickets for 66 runs in 9.5 overs. Kuldeep, too, took four wickets, taking his tally to nine scalps in the series.
When it came to the chase, it was yet another RoKo show with Jaiswal playing the protagonist. Rohit stuck to the template ODI batting, especially with the target being below par. Along with Jaiswal, slowly but steadily, he picked up boundaries and built the partnership. Rohit's fifty came off 54 balls and he kept going in search of yet another century after the one in Sydney last month. However, Rohit missed out as he fell for 75 from 73 balls but that did not stop Jaiswal from getting the monkey of his back.
After waiting for his chance to be in the XI, he had been frustratingly waiting for the first century and it came on Saturday in front of a packed stadium with Kohli at the other end. The leap, roar and the celebration said it all as Jaiswal saw through the chase with Kohli, who seemed to be batting on a different planet. He remained unbeaten on 65 from 45 balls with the last 30 runs coming in 12 balls. He was unsurprisingly the player of the series with 302 runs in three matches.
Brief scores: South Africa 270 in 47.5 ovs (De Kock 106, Bavuma 48; Prasidh 4/66, Kuldeep 4/41) lost to India 271/1 in 39.5 ovs (Jaiswal 116 n.o, Rohit 75, Kohli 65 n.o).
