India defeated South Africa by two wickets in the third ODI played at Newlands, Cape Town. The visitors now lead the series 2-1 with two more matches left in the series.
South Africa won the toss and elected to bat first but the South African batsmen failed to fire. Graeme Smith and Hashim Amla (16) put on just 31 runs for the first wicket while Colin Ingram (10) and AB de Villiers (16) struggled with the bat. Smith scored 43 runs with three fours before he was out caught by Virat Kohli off the bowling of Harbhajan Singh to leave South Africa struggling at 90/4.
A crucial 110-run partnership between JP Duminy and debutant Faf du Plessis took the score to 200 by the end of 45th over. Duminy scored 52 runs from 59 balls while du Plessis scored 60 runs from 78 balls with two boundaries. However, the home team lost their last six wickets for just 20 runs and were finally all-out for 220 runs in the 50th over.
The fact that they lost Sachin Tendulkar to an injury and with an in-experienced top order, chasing under the lights was never going to be easy for the Indians. Murali Vijay (1) failed once again with the bat while other batsmen too struggled against the pace and swing of the South African bowlers.
Rohit Sharma (23) and Virat Kohli (28) added 52 runs for the second wicket but both the batsmen fell within five runs. When MS Dhoni (5) and Yuvraj Singh (16) too failed with the bat, India were literally out of the game at 93/5.
Suresh Raina (37) and Yusuf Pathan (59) lit up hopes of a possible victory with a 75-run partnership in just 72 balls. Pathan was hitting the ball well today and scored his third half century from just 41 balls. He hit six fours and three sixes; all three off one over from Johan Botha.
When Pathan departed India still needed 39 runs with only the tail-enders to bat. Harbhajan Singh (23) added 26 runs with Zaheer Khan (14) and then added 15 runs with Ashish Nehra (6) to guide India past the victory margin. Yusuf Pathan was declared the man of the match for his match winning 59 runs.