Kohli, Rahane and wrist spinners help India go 1-0 up

India 270 for 4 (Kohli 112, Rahane 79) beat South Africa 269 for 8 (Du Plessis 120, Morris 37, Kuldeep 3-34) by six wickets

Durban: Virat Kohli went one hundred closer to Sachin Tendulkar when he scored his 33rd ODI ton in the first ODI of the six match series against South Africa.

A 189-run stand between Kohli and Ajinkya Rahane for the third wicket took the game beyond South Africa as India coasted to a six wicket win.

With the win, India ended their sorry record of six losses at Kingsmead, Durban for first ever win in eastern part of the country.

MS Dhoni got the winning runs for the visitors with a boundary.

Kohli’s 112 run knock from 119 balls and Rahane’s 79 from 86 balls ended South Africa’s two year winning reign in ODIs at home which stretched to 17 matches.

The last time South Africa were beaten at home was off England’s hands in February, 2016. Since then, the Proteas have won against Ireland, Australia, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.

Attributed to be one of the best chasers in world cricket, Kohli once again made that tag count with his 20th ODI century when batting second with 18 of them resulting in an India win.

Chasing 270 for the win, Kohli and Rahane made the most of good batting conditions and against a potent South Africa bowling attack to comfortably cruise to the win with 27 balls to spare.

Between the two teams, barring the Kohli-Rahane factor, Yuzvendra Chahal and Kuldeep Yadav made a difference too.

As seamers Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Jasprit Bumrah had an off day, the wrist spinners curtailed the flow of runs and more importantly, got key wickets as well.

Chahal picked up two wickets while Kuldeep chipped in with three wickets.

For South Africa, skipper Faf du Plessis scored 120 runs to play a perfect counter attacking inning. He found support from Chris Morris at the other end before Kuldeep came back and ended that stand to put the game back in India’s favour.

Then Andile Phehlukwayo too chipped in with a late cameo of 27 runs to take South Africa to a respectable and quite decent 269/8.