South Africa trounce India in harsh welcome

South Africa brought Floyd-like edge to the word pink as they welcomed a clearly undercooked Indian side to the country with a 141-run hammering. Quinton de Kock, the baby face in baby pink, combined ferocity and cheek in his 135, and assisted by supporting fifties from Hashim Amla, AB de Villiers and JP Duminy, gave India 359 to chase. On a pitch made to look placid by their bowlers, the India batsmen were on a hiding to nothing against a six-man pace attack that was at them from the start, when it took them 16 balls to even touch a Dale Steyn delivery.

During that first spell, Steyn caused India more trouble than the visiting bowlers did in the whole South African innings. On their first day of international cricket on this trip, the India bowlers were given the best of conditions: they won the toss, bowled when the pitch was at its freshest, and avoided the dew. However, with the exception of Mohammed Shami, they didn’t test the batsmen for long enough, and when they did their fielders were off their game. Amla could have been run out on 7, and should have been caught on 8, but was let off by the India openers Shikhar Dhawan and Rohit Sharma. De Kock, too, survived a half chance early in the innings, but that was all impression the bowlers created.

Summarized Scores: South Africa 358 for 4 (Amla 65, de Kock 135, de Villiers 77, Duminy 59*, Shami 3-68) beat India 217 (Dhoni 65, Steyn 3-25, McLaren 3-49) by 141 runs