India vs South Africa: How Proteas planned bouncers against India batsmen and targeted Ashwin

Perth, October 31: India and South Africa ran neck to neck until the 18th over, a point when R Ashwin came to bowl at the OPTUS Stadium here on Sunday (October 30).

At that stage SA were 109 for 4 with 25 runs needing from 18 balls. It was not a desperate situation for South Africa but they needed a decisive moment to breakaway from India.

David Miller brought that smashing Ashwin's first two balls for sixes to bring down the equation to 13 runs from 17 balls. And from there, there could have been only winner even when the match stretched to the last over.

“Yes, I think naturally that's our game would sort of pan out when the seamers are all that difficult to get away. We expected them to take on Keshav. I'm sure they expected us to take on Ashwin as well, just because of the nature of the wicket, because the seamers were so difficult to get away.

“So, it almost got to a stage where we had to target someone because they bowled so well initially in the first, pretty much, ten overs up until the drinks break. It got to the stage where we had to pick someone. It could be anyone on any night. And sometimes you execute. Sometimes you don't.

“But you pick those matchups according to who you're most comfortable against on the night. You get to different conditions and those matchups would change completely. Yeah, it was a discussion we had at the drinks break to pick one of the bowlers, commit to that. And if it comes off then it might give us a chance,” said Markram in the post-match press do.

South African bowlers employed the bouncer strategy to telling effect against India top order batsmen as three of the four batters — Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma and Hardik Pandya fell playing pull against short pitched balls.

Markram explained it. “Yeah, I mean, I think it was expected that the lengths would be sort of short of the good lengths. And the extra bounce, like I mentioned earlier, makes it quite tough.

“We expected those lengths. I think the ball does get big on you and it can make for batters looking quite silly at times. But you've got to almost keep watching the ball as close as you can.

“I think credit has to go to both bowling attacks today. I think both bowling attacks bowled really well today. And it certainly difficult to score out there. And they made life pretty tough for us as South African batting group,” he signed off.