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South Africa's Cricket World Cup campaign appears to be in tatters after slumping to its third defeat of the tournament following a six-wicket loss to India at the Rose Bowl in Southampton.
Key points:
- The Proteas have lost all three of their round-robin matches at the Cricket World Cup
- They are likely to need to win all of their six remaining matches to make the semi-finals
- New Zealand recorded its second win of the tournament with a two-wicket victory over Bangaldesh
While New Zealand celebrated sneaking home by two wickets against Bangladesh, the Proteas faced the daunting prospect of having to win all six of their remaining round-robin matches if they are to have any chance of reaching the semi-finals.
The Proteas, who have never progressed past the semi-final stage in their seven previous Cricket World Cup appearances, have now lost all three matches in England and they were made to pay for mistakes against India.
Rohit Sharma made the most of an early reprieve to post an unbeaten 122 for India, his let off coming in the second over — Kagiso Rabada's first — when he fended at a short ball, which brushed his glove and carried to second slip.
But Proteas captain Faf du Plessis was not able to grab the chance and Sharma recovered steadily to reach 100 from 128 balls, before India surpassed the victory target of 228 with 15 balls to spare.
The Proteas, who are without pace spearhead Dale Steyn because of injury, had lost to England by 104 runs in the tournament opener, before falling to Bangladesh by 21 runs in their second match.
Veteran opening batsman Hashim Amla said the Proteas, ranked third in the world, were refusing to hit the panic button despite being winless so far.
"Desperate? I don't think just yet," he said.
"Six out of six basically gets you there. It's about reassessing and getting better."
Amla said there was still a chance the Proteas could play their way into form and move through to the knock-out stage.
"The last two World Cups, we started off pretty good but unfortunately we didn't win," he said.
"Maybe this is another way around. Maybe this could be the one where we start badly, get a win, get some momentum and turn things around."
It was India's first appearance of the Cricket World Cup and captain Virat Kohli was glowing in his praise of Sharma for producing an innings he considered the opening batsman's best in one-day international career.
"In my opinion this is by far his best ODI innings because of the kind of pressure the first game brings from a World Cup point of view," Kohli said.
"He played the perfect innings for that kind of a situation on that kind of a wicket against a bowling attack that was threatening to pick up wickets at any stage."
India next plays defending champion Australia at The Oval in London on Sunday (local time), while the Proteas remain in Southampton to face West Indies the same day.
Black Caps get the job done
New Zealand batsman Ross Taylor admitted his side rode their luck and did not play clinically enough in their nervy victory over Bangladesh at The Oval.
The Black Caps bowled and fielded tightly to dismiss Bangladesh for a moderate 244, before collapsing from a commanding 2-160 to stumble to their target with 17 balls to spare.
Taylor top-scored with 82 on the day he became the third New Zealander to make 400 international appearances across all formats of the game.
"At the end of the day, I think we weren't as clinical as we would have liked, but we got the two points which is first and foremost what we wanted," Taylor said.
"You've got to give credit to Bangladesh. They just never gave up and I think the way the crowd got into it, I thought at times I was in Chittagong or Dhaka."
Taylor was caught down the leg side by Mushfiqur off spinner Mosaddek Hossain, one of six wickets the Black Caps lost in quick succession as they crumbled to 8-238.
But Mitchell Santner saw them over the line to secure their second victory of the tournament following a crushing win over Sri Lanka.
Reuters
Topics: sport, cricket, united-kingdom, england
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