Defending champions India outclassed South Africa in all departments of the game to enter the semi-finals of the ICC Champions Trophy 2017 with a comprehensive eight-wicket victory at The Oval on Sunday. India will meet Bangladesh in the semi-finals in Birmingham on Thursday. The Proteas lived up to their 'Perennial Chokers' tag in a virtual quarter-final clash that turned out to be a thoroughly one-sided encounter.
Shikhar Dhawan (78 off 83 balls) and skipper Virat Kohli (76 off 101 balls) made it look like a walk in the park as India chased down a target of 192 in only 38 overs.
Earlier, an impressive bowling performance that was complemented by fantastic fielding effort, saw the holders skittle out South Africa for a paltry 191 in 44.3 overs after winning the toss.
It was yet another embarrassing batting collapse after the openers put on 76 runs. The world's number one team lost the last eight wickets for 51 runs after being comfortably placed at 116 for one at one stage.
Two run-outs of skipper AB de Villiers (16) and David Miller (1) within the space of six deliveries triggered the slide from which they could never recover, with almost all the Indian bowlers succeeding in choking the runs.
India bowled an astounding 141 dot balls which are equivalent to 23.3 maiden overs out of the 44.2 overs that South Africa batted.
Speaking after the match, fast bowler Jasprit Bumrah said the team wanted to be calm and execute their plans in order to seal the semi-finals spot.
Man-of-the-Match Bumrah, who scalped two wickets for 28 runs in eight overs, also revealed the strategy and said the ball was not swinging so they wanted to bowl a tight line.
"It was an important game for us. We were looking forward to the game. We wanted to be calm and wanted to execute our plans in this game, so it worked out for us," Bumrah said after the match.
"I was happy to bowl with the new ball. We contained well at the start. The ball wasn't swinging, so we wanted to stick to a tight line. That was the basic plan for us. It was a good toss to win and bowl first because the wickets haven't been helping the fast bowlers," he added.
This win took India's points tally to four points, while South Africa, with only two points from three matches, were eliminated.
