India wins 3rd ODI against SA with the Pathan Effect

The third ODI went into the kitty of visitors as the all-rounder Yusuf Pathan made the difference after early collapse of Indian first half. His breezy innings of 59 from just 50 turned the course of the match which got a well deserved finish by Harbhajan and Ashish Nehra in a two wicket win thriller.

Pathan made up his mind from the very early and hammered the South African bowlers, especially the spinners to all parts of the ground en route to his 50—ball 59—run knock on a two—paced Newlands track.

Pathan came on the pitch when India were toiling on 93 for 5 and none of the batsmen left. However, he teamed up with Suresh Raina who scored 37 of 47 balls to bring back India in the match by sharing 75 runs for the sixth wicket.

Precisely, it was 3 sixes of one of the Botha’s over that entirely changed the course of the match.

However, he became the victim of Steyn in the 40th over. No less than an all-rounder Harbhajan Singh played a sensible inning of 23 with 2 sixes in his kitty. Little help from Zaheer’s 14 and Nehra’s 6 led India to make the visitors lead the series by 2-1.

Though the bowling of Morkel (3/28) and Steyn (2/31) almost looked unplayable throughout the match, the tail enders did work well upon them.

Earlier, SA, batting first collapsed to 220 by the visitors. JP Duminy (52) and debutant Faf du Plessis (60) helped SA recover who were at one stage toiling at 90/4.

Yusuf Pathan for his spectacular performance was awarded ‘Man of the Match’.

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