- R. Ashwin’s Breakthrough:
There was a lot of buzz surrounding R. Ashwin before this game. Many felt that India committed a grave error by not including the star off-spinner against Sri Lanka. Making amends, Ashwin was rightly selected in the XI at the expense of Umesh Yadav. Skipper Virat Kohli trusted his ace spinner to do the job and brought him on as the first change after the new ball bowlers had kept the South African openers quite. Despite getting off to a slow start of 35 off 53 deliveries, Amla was just beginning to find his groove and South Africa were well placed at 76-0 in the 18th over.
Ashwin skillfully bowled a quicker one outside the off stump, which wasn’t well anticipated by Amla. The ball ended up taking a thick chunk of Amla’s willow and ended up in the safe gloves of MS Dhoni. In the context, that was a massive moment in the game.