St Lucia, May 2: India beat South Africa by 14 runs in the T20 World Cup, topping their group and emerging as the first team to enter the last 8 stage of the tournament.
Chasing a target of 187 for a victory, South Africa could manage only 172/5 in 20 overs.
Put into bat, India lost Murali Vijay early. But Suresh Raina continued his inform performance. He hit 101 off 60 balls which was studded with 5 sixes and 9 fours. His brilliant century won him the man of the match award. Yuvraj Singh contributed 37 off 30 balls.
With Raina’s help, India posted a mammoth 186/5 against South Africa. Rory Kleinveldt took 2 wickets.
In the South African innings, though Jacques Kallis made 73 off 54 balls, hitting 3 sixes and 3 fours and giving the Indians some moments of worry, the rest of the team failed to rise to the occasion.
Graeme Smith made 36 and AB de Villiers, 31, which helped them reach a decent 172. But the Indian bowlers worked magic and contained the scoring of the Proteas and their asking rate keeping shooting up.
Yusuf Pathan took 2 wickets and Ashish Nehra took one wicket for India.
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