Bumrah, Chahal restrict South Africa to 227/9

Southampton: Leg-spinner Yuzvendra Chahal grabbed four wickets, helping India restrict South Africa to a sub-par 227 for 9 in their opening encounter of the World Cup here Wednesday.

South Africa skipper Faf du Plessis' decision to bat under overcast conditions backfired with Jasprit Bumrah (10-1-35-2) setting the tone with twin blows in his opening spell. Chahal (10-0-51-4) then tightened the noose on South African batsmen as they could never really force the pace during the middle overs. Incidentally, this was the best 10-over single spell (in terms of wickets taken) by any bowler in a World Cup game. South Africa's total got some semblance of respectability courtesy Chris Morris (42 off 34) and Kagiso Rabada (31 not out off 35), who shared a much needed 66-run stand for the eighth wicket. Bhuvneshwar Kumar (10-0-44-2) coming in place of Mohammed Shami was impressive in his second spell.

Under a thick cloud cover and a pitch that offered bounce, Bumrah was unplayable in his initial five over spell where he pitched on good length or back of it, getting the deliveries to rear up awkwardly and shape away from openers Quinton de Kock and Hashim Amla. Bumrah dismissed Amla (6) with a beautiful delivery that rose from length outside the off-stump and the outside edge was taken low in the slips by Rohit Sharma. De Kock (10) was out in his next over when his back of length delivery was angled across and the left-hander's slash was pouched by skipper Virat Kohli at the third slip. Skipper Du Plessis (38 off 54 balls) and Rassie van der Dussen (22 off 37 balls) did add 44 runs for the third wicket but it was more of a consolidation job as they found scoring runs difficult.

The Powerplay yielded only 34 runs and even though the Proteas skipper hit four boundaries, he never looked comfortable. Third seamer Hardik Pandya (6-0-31-0) also hit the hard lengths and one of his deliveries, a nasty snorter, hit Du Plessis flush on the gloves, leaving him in pain. Along with Kedar Jadhav (4-0-16-0), they shared the fifth bowler's duties admirably giving away only 45 runs. Once Chahal and Kuldeep Yadav (10-0-46-1) started operating in tandem, something was waiting to happen.

Van der Dussen, who was showing composure till then, suddenly had a brain fade as the right-hander tried an ambitious reverse sweep to a delivery drifting on his pads only to be bowled. From 78 for 2, it soon became 80 for 4 as Du Plessis failed to read a Chahal googly and was bowled through the gate. Kuldeep then had a horribly out-of-form JP Duminy (3 off 11) plumb in-front with scoreboard reading 89 for 5. David Miller (31 off 40 balls) and Andile Phehlukwayo (34 off 61 balls) again had to carry out a repair job adding 46 runs but Chahal collected another two wickets quickly to reduce them to 158 for 7.