India-South Africa Kanpur ODI: Security beefed up
The first ODI between India and South Africa is to be played on 11 October at Green Park Stadium in Kanpur. Security has been increased taking precautions after what had happened at Cuttack. Bottles have been banned and CCTV cameras have been installed throughout the stadium. 12 paramilitary forces will be taking care of the security of the stadium.
India will play three T20Is, five ODIs and four Tests against South Africa in the Paytm Freedom series, also known as the Mandela-Gandhi series. Special coins were minted for the toss with images of Gandhi and Mandela to pay homage to them. India and South Africa have faced each other 71 times in ODIs with India winning 26 and South Africa winning 42 matches.
Indian skipper Rohit Sharma played an extremely well 106 run knock out of just 66 balls helping India to get to a total of 199. AB De Villiers and Hashim Amla gave South Africa a good start with 80 runs coming of their partnership. Man of the match South African skipper J Duminy played a great knock to thrash India by 7 wickets
South Africa ended the Indian innings at a mere 92 runs with Indian skippers Virat Kohli And Rohit Sharma scoring 22 each. South Africa very comfortably reached the target crushing India by 6 wickets. South African skipper Albie Morkel in his spell of 4 overs gave out only 12 runs and took 3 wickets breaking India's back, winning the the man of the match.
Indian innings of 92 fueled anger among the crowd who interrupted the game. 11 overs into the South African innings, the crowd started throwing bottles venting their anger and stopping the play for 27 minutes. Play resumed but another string of bottles were thrown stopping the game for 24 minutes. Police cleared off a section of the stand and SA then finished the game.
There was pressure on the Indian side to make a comeback in this match but rains stopped the play at Eden Gardens. The match officials didn't deem the ground fit and ready for a match. The third International T20 between India and South Africa has therefore to be called off. South Africa won the three match T20 series by 2-0.
Former Indian skipper Ajit Agarkar has stroked a controversy questioning ODI Captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni's place in the team. He urged that Dhoni is slowly becoming a liability for the team. Agarkar came under fire after this comment as Dhoni's fans ridiculed him on social media claiming that he had a failed career and thus had no right to question Dhoni's place.
Since 1957 India has lost only twice at Kanpur, to the West Indies on both occasions. Most runs and most wickets on this ground are by former Indian Skippers Gundappa Vishwanath (776 runs) and Kapil Dev (21 wickets).
