India -S Africa 2nd ODI Match Shreyas Iyer, Kishan set up series levelling win for India

India -S Africa 2nd ODI Match Shreyas Iyer, Kishan set up series levelling win for India

India -S Africa 2nd ODI Match Shreyas Iyer, Kishan set up series levelling win for India

Ranchi : Shreyas Iyer struck a sublime century while Ishan Kishan displayed his brute force against a formidable South African attack to set up a series-levelling seven-wicket win for India in the second ODI here today.

Mohammed Siraj led an inexperienced Indian bowling line-up brilliantly to restrict South Africa to 278/7 after the visitors opted to bat.

Iyer made his second ODI hundred (113 not out off 111) and shared a match winning 161-run stand with Kishan (93 off 84) to ensure a comfortable win in 45.5 overs.

The 24-year-old Kishan looked a transformed batter and showed different layers of his batting by switching to beast mode after a responsible start. He smashed seven sixes and four boundaries in his career-best knock.

Vice-captain Iyer ended up hitting 15 fours. The 27-year-old, who has scored a century and four fifties in his last six innings, was named the Player of the Match.

“I am ecstatic, to be honest,” Iyer said. “When I went in to bat, I spoke to Ishan and he was in the mindset to take on the bowlers. So we decided to play the ball on merit and see how it went,” he added.

Earlier, Aiden Markram (79 off 89 balls) and Reeza Hendricks (74 off 76) looked in control of the proceedings in the middle overs. The duo shared a 129-run partnership off as many balls. However, Siraj helped India pull things back. He bowled a tight line and length, and changed his pace intelligently.

“The ball was coming on nicely but it was keeping low. But once the dew came into the picture, it was skidding on. So the back-foot shots were easy to execute,” said India captain Shikhar Dhawan.

South Africa skipper Keshav Maharaj said: “I think we didn’t expect the dew to play such a big part, that’s why we opted to bat after we won the toss.” — Agencies

Brief scores: South Africa 278/7 (Markram 79, Hendricks 74; Siraj 3/38); India: 282/3 in 45.5 overs (Iyer 113*, Kishan 93; Parnell 1/43).