South Africa tried hard to make a simple task look difficult as they beat India by 2 wickets with an over to spare in the third match of the one-day series at the Nahar Singh Stadium in Faridabad today. Having been set a very competitive target of 249 in 49 overs after being docked one over due to a slow over rate, the visitors were cruising at 204/3 with more than 11 overs left when they began a steady procession to and fro the crease, leaving the victory to be completed by their ninth wicket pair. And Mark Boucher delivered the coup the grace in style as he lashed Rahul Dravid over midwicket with a full over to spare. Having pulled one back, the South Africans go into the fourth match at Baroda two days from now with everything to play for.

Cronje fortuitously won the toss for the third time in a row and in a change of strategy opted to bowl first. The liberal sprinkling of grass on the pitch would have had the South African quicks licking their lips in anticipation. But although the odd ball bounced off a length the batsmen were relatively untroubled by the wicket. Saurav Ganguly set a scorching pace from the beginning leaving Tendulkar a silent spectator as the fifty came up in just the ninth over. Tendulkar failed again and after Ganguly (56 in 54 balls) and Azharuddin fell in quick succession, the innings was fizzling out.

Dravid and Jadeja shored up the innings in the middle overs and Sunil Joshi played a sweet cameo of 23 in 16 balls. Dravid had a life early when he was put down by Gibbs at point and he did not always time the ball with the felicity that we have known him to but it was an knock of character and he nursed the innings through a period before falling for 73, the third run out victim of the innings. Samir Dighe made a run a ball 17 to lift the score to 248/8 and the Indians would have had reason to believe that the series could be closed out here.

The seamers had a torrid time in their opening spells leading Ganguly to quickly bring on the spin troika of Kumble, Joshi and Tendulkar. They all shared a wicket apiece as South Africa were left in a delicate position at 91/3 in 18 overs although they batted pretty deep with Elworthy the only one without any batting pretensions. The turn of events brought two hardened campaigners in Kirsten and Cronje together and they took up the gauntlet with a no-nonsense display that took the game away from the Indians. They applied themselves professionally to their task, calmly rattling off the singles as they focused on keeping the asking rate manageable for the strokemakers later in the order.

The heads of the bowlers drooped lower as a lackadaisical approach in the field, epitomised by Ajit Agarkar letting the ball slip through his legs to the squareleg boundary, presented free runs to the batsmen. Kirsten (93) and Cronje (66) put on 113 before they were separated in the 38th over. And although the middle order seemed to be in the throes of a death wish, doing their best to throw it away, it was always going to be too little too late as far as the Indians were concerned. Tendulkar bowled his heart out to finish with 4-56 but having allowed the Proteas to taste blood, the Indians will have to raise their game at Baroda if they are not to let their opponents claw back into the series.

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