Highest scores at St. George's Park while chasing 121* - Jacques Kallis vs WI, 2008 119* - Tony de Zorzi vs IND, 2023* 115* - Mark Waugh vs SA, 1997 105 - Graeme Smith vs ENG, 2005
-- This is the sixth loss for India in 7 ODIs at St George's Park. The only win for India at this venue came against South Africa in 2018.
Highest opening partnership at St George's Park 130* - T de Zorzi & R Hendricks vs IND, 2023* 129 - M Clarke & B Haddin vs SA, 2009 121 - K Otieno & R Shah vs IND, 2001
ODI hundreds as an opener for SA vs IND since 2013 6 - Quinton de Kock 1 - Hashim Amla 1 - Tony de Zorzi*
A few stats to round off our coverage.
Aiden Markram | South Africa captain: A lot better than a couple of days ago. Much better all-round performance. Was still quite a tough wicket when we went to chase and the openers to fight like that was great. The breeze played quite a bit of a factor. Nandre is waste from the top end with the wind bowling behind his back. Might as well see him bowl rockets. Chopped and changed a lot today and bowled great areas and execution was great. We did that in the middle overs and carried through the end. The ball was moving around even now. Not a 300 wicket, but a high 200 wicket is my guess but I could be completely wrong. [on de Zorzi] It was huge from him, only played a couple of games, to be not out like that and to see the chase ver the line is a special feat from him. Hope he enjoys it tonight and the whole dressing room was in awe of him, the way he constructed the innings. Hopefully the first of many. [on the loss at Wanderers] We can't accept performances like that and that's the first thing we addressed. With bat on hand we let ourselves down, whatever they set today, the mindset was to chase it down. A much more confident unit after today.
Tony de Zorzi | Player of the Match: I'm fine. Just a bit stiff. Was a flood of emotions to be honest, I first thought of my mom, she would have been back from work, there are a lot of doubters and happy to prove them wrong. Rob and JP spoke to me on what they kind of expected from me at the top of the order. At the Wanderers would have been nice to extend it. I would say adaptable and decent at adapting to conditions. [has it sunk in yet?] Probably not - was quite cool to go to the band and everyone is clapping there, I will never forget a moment like this.
KL Rahul | India captain: Probably win the toss, there was a bit of help in the wicket in the 1st half. It was a hard wicket but having said that Sai and I were set, had we gone on and made a big 100, we could have got 50-60 extra and those are learnings we will take from here. Had we got 240 would have been good but unforuntaly we lost wickets at regular intervals and they had help from the wicket. We trust in each individual's games and each individual's gameplan and what they feel is comfortable with - that's what we tell them, there's no right or wrong n cricket and you trust the players to come up wth their own gameplans. Therw was a bit of help in the first 10 overs and we beat the bat a lot, one edge we did not hold on to, had we taken that we could have put pressure on them. We leave what happens on the ground and try and focus on the next one.
19:57 Local Time, 17:57 GMT, 23:27 IST: A dominant chase this from South Africa. Set up by the young de Zorzi who has remained unbeaten and guided his side home.
42.3
Sai Sudharsan to de Zorzi, SIX, fittingly de Zorzi ends it. But Mukesh at deep mid-wicket takes it and doesn't control his momentum, goes over the cushions. Denies Sai Sudharsan a wicket,
South Africa
India
