India vs South Africa U-19 World Cup ODI match Kuala Lumpur 2 March, 2008 – A Fun Report
South Africa captain Parnell won the toss and elected to field. Leading from the front, he sank his teeth into the Indian Team, bowling 2 maidens and not allowing Indians to score. When finally India had been able to score just 3 runs in 4 overs, Taruwar Kohli from Jalandhar got impatient and edged one to Malan off Parnell. Goswami didn’t last long too. And India were 2/27. Virat Kohli did play a short knock to restore the innings but the score was still 74 when he left. Srivastava left after a good knock of 46 as the highest scorer, but the score was only 4/83 when he left. Small contributiona here and there but India could only total 159 and could not consume the full overs. Parnell finished with rocking figures on 7.4-2-21-2. In fact, all of the bowlers did well. Well, it seems that the Indian Honeymoon was over. India had already had their day in the morning when they beat Australia in the first final of the CB Series by 6 wickets. Tendulkar had scored a scintillating century and carried his bat through. Well, India seemed to have run out of luck in the U-19 World Cup!
The South African innings started tentatively with Sangwan and Agral bowling well. Soon, Agral sent Malan packing to start a collapse. Soon South Africa were 3/17 and Agral was having a dream spell reading 4-2-3-2!! When play resumed after a rain spell, the target was revised to 99 off 98 balls. And when it resumed Ravindersinh Jadeja (the descendant of Maharaja Ranjit Singh as well as erstwhile Indian player Ajay Jadeja) took a quick wicket and made it 4/22. And just when it looked that India could go ahead and win it from here, a partnership started between Hendricks and Captain Parnell. Finally Jadeja ended the 50 run partnership getting out Hendrick at 36 (he was dropped earlier a couple of times, including once by Virat Kohli). Another wicket fell immediately. Parnell played a Captains knock and kept trying but it became more and more difficult. India won the match by 12 runs as SA ended at 103/8.
(the above are written in a funny mood and not intended to hurt your sentiment – i doubt if any actual players gets time to read – so please don’t (get) hurt yourself defending them)
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