Munaf stars in stunning one-run win: South Africa v India, 2nd ODI, Johannesburg

India win with determination and a lot of luck

India never had a realistic chance of winning until Graeme Smith took the batting Powerplay when it wasn't needed and inside-edged on to his stumps

On days like these, you can miss a run-out and nearly miss another but still get that wicket. On days like these, you can be lazy at third man, costing the team three crucial runs, but still come back and bowl two short and wide deliveries to take the last two wickets, with one run to defend.

Days like these are when you don't pocket any of the first eight balls, but your opponent misses a simple shot at the nine ball. Still, you have to make that final pocket, put that nine ball in. When the opposition is offering you gifts, you have to be there to receive them. India were there to receive theirs today, nudging South Africa and the cricketing gods enough at the right times to make sure those gifts came their way.
When Zaheer Khan didn't get off to the best of starts with the ball, Munaf Patel made sure India got the early wicket. He extracted bounce from the pitch, and relied on that early seam movement to snare Hashim Amla, and went for just 18 in his first spell of four overs. When Ashish Nehra struggled against a rampaging Graeme Smith, Harbhajan Singh tied the other end up, coming on to bowl during the first Powerplay, keeping India in the game for longer.
MS Dhoni commended Harbhajan's effort later, to go with Munaf's start. "Harbhajan's contribution was really important," he said. "The South African batsmen had momentum on their side. The way he bowled, that eight-over spell (for 27 runs), they decided to not take Harbhajan on, which meant they lost a bit of momentum. That really brought us back. After that every body contributed. Munaf's contribution was brilliant. He bowls really straight, varies his pace really well, and he deserves to be the Man of the Match."
Still, with Dhoni dropping Colin Ingram, with the fielding not looking greater than it usually is, the game seemed to meander towards the obvious result, but this was not a night for the obvious results. Dhoni introduced part-time spin, JP Duminy went for glory too, and India were now into the inexperienced David Miller and the five bowlers, a ploy India have always avoided. And Dhoni was quick to point this game out to illustrate why he doesn't play five bowlers.
"Putting pressure on the South African middle and lower order order was important," Dhoni said. "We knew [Johan] Botha and [Wayne] Parnell can bat, but pressure is a completely different ball game. When you put pressure on players like, from our side, Harbhajan or Zaheer, who we know can bat, but in a situation like this it becomes very different. That's what we wanted to do. At times pressure makes you do things that you are not supposed to do."

The pressure didn't quite work immediately. Smith and Miller added 32 runs, and while Miller looked shaky, it seemed Smith was back to his form of carrying the team through till the end. And suddenly he too seemed to want to make a statement by finishing it off in style, calling for the Powerplay. Then Munaf produced what Smith called a "good slower ball", one that straightened enough to catch the inside edge onto the stumps.
Now India started feeling it. Back came their hunter, Zaheer, who likes to prey on weak minds. He shouldn't have got Botha's wicket when he did, but the slower bouncer he bowled to Miller showed good awareness of how the pitch was behaving. It was a pitch on which Munaf showed that the slower ones gripped and bounced at the batsmen, and Zaheer started using that too.
And again, when Parnell and Morne Morkel looked like they had sort of got used to Munaf's rhythm, Dhoni brought Raina on. It might not have worked on the night, but the mind was working, an attempt was being made to try and make things happen, to try and encash that gift voucher. Dhoni was proactive again when he brought Munaf back with three runs required, keeping the fields up, unlike in Tests.
His description of the events of that last over just reinforced the presence of cricketing gods, who smile at some and punish some others. "When you need one or two wickets, and the opposition needs three runs, you know they are just one stroke away," Dhoni said. "There is pressure then as to whether the fielder should be in or out to save that boundary. When you come back after losing a toss, you blame yourself, thinking you could have called heads as opposed to tails. Bringing that point fielder in was a somewhat similar situation. I had just decided to bring Yusuf [Pathan] in, and the catch went his way." Thus the nine ball went in.

Munaf Patel      

India

Full name Munaf Musa Patel

Born July 12, 1983, Ikhar, Gujarat

Current age 27 years 188 days

Major teams India, Asia XI, Gujarat, India Green,Indian Board President's XI, Maharashtra, Mumbai,Rajasthan Royals

Playing role Bowler

Batting style Right-hand bat

Bowling style Right-arm medium-fast

Batting and fielding averages

	Mat	Inns	NO	Runs	HS	Ave	BF	SR	100	50	4s	6s	Ct	St
Tests	12	13	5	56	15*	7.00	137	40.87	0	0	7	1	6	0
ODIs	51	22	13	69	15	7.66	100	69.00	0	0	7	1	8	0
T20Is	1	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	0	0
First-class	52	60	20	607	78	15.17	862	70.41	0	1			13	0
List A	97	39	19	161	28	8.05			0	0			24	0
Twenty20	32	9	5	37	23*	9.25	32	115.62	0	0	5	0	7	0

Bowling averages

	Mat	Inns	Balls	Runs	Wkts	BBI	BBM	Ave	Econ	SR	4w	5w	10
Tests	12	23	2394	1230	34	4/25	7/97	36.17	3.08	70.4	1	0	0
ODIs	51	49	2263	1789	60	4/29	4/29	29.81	4.74	37.7	2	0	0
T20Is	1	1	12	26	1	1/26	1/26	26.00	13.00	12.0	0	0	0
First-class	52		9400	4461	191	6/50		23.35	2.84	49.2	12	7	1
List A	97		4446	3371	118	4/21	4/21	28.56	4.54	37.6	3	0	0
Twenty20	32	32	647	826	34	3/17	3/17	24.29	7.65	19.0	0	0	0

Career statistics

Test debut	India v England at Mohali, Mar 9-13, 2006 scorecard
Last Test	New Zealand v India at Wellington, Apr 3-7, 2009 scorecard
Test statistics	- Statsguru Test analysis -  Player analysis menu/filter  Test match list  ---------------------------------  Batting career summary  Batting innings list  High scores  Batting series averages  ---------------------------------  Bowling career summary  Bowling innings list  Bowling match list  Best innings bowling  Best match bowling  Bowling series averages  ---------------------------------  Fielding career summary  Fielding innings list  Most catches in an innings  Fielding series statistics
ODI debut	India v England at Margao, Apr 3, 2006 scorecard
Last ODI	South Africa v India at Johannesburg, Jan 15, 2011 scorecard
ODI statistics	- Statsguru ODI analysis -  Player analysis menu/filter  ODI match list  ---------------------------------  Batting career summary  Batting innings list  High scores  Batting series averages  ---------------------------------  Bowling career summary  Bowling innings list  Best innings bowling  Bowling series averages  ---------------------------------  Fielding career summary  Fielding innings list  Most catches in an innings  Fielding series statistics
Only T20I	South Africa v India at Durban, Jan 9, 2011 scorecard
T20I statistics	- Statsguru T20I analysis -  Player analysis menu/filter  T20I match list  ---------------------------------  Bowling career summary  Bowling innings list  ---------------------------------  Fielding career summary  Fielding innings list
First-class debut	2003/04
Last First-class	Baroda v Railways at Vadodara, Dec 24-27, 2010 scorecard
List A debut	2003/04
Last List A	South Africa v India at Johannesburg, Jan 15, 2011 scorecard
Twenty20 debut	Delhi Daredevils v Rajasthan Royals at Delhi, Apr 19, 2008 scorecard
Last Twenty20	South Africa v India at Durban, Jan 9, 2011 scorecard

Profile
Few medium-pacers had generated as much hype before bowling a ball in first-class, let alone international cricket as Munaf Musa Patel, the young boy from the little town of Ikhar in Bahruch, Gujarat did in early 2003. Kiran More, now chairman of selectors, had seen him bowl in the nets and sent him straight to the MRF Pace Foundation in Chennai to train under TA Sekhar and Dennis Lillee. Soon he was being hailed as the fastest man in Indian cricket. Then, even as Baroda and Gujarat vied for his services, Patel chose Mumbai, after Sachin Tendulkar had taken special interest in him and had a word with the authorities in the Mumbai Cricket Association. Even then Patel's first-class career was anything but smooth as he spent more time recovering from various injuries than actually playing.

SCORECARD

India in South Africa ODI Series - 2nd ODI

South Africa v India

India won by 1 run

India innings (50 overs maximum)		R	M	B	4s	6s	SR
	M Vijay	c Morkel b Tsotsobe	16	30	32	3	0	50.00
	SR Tendulkar	b Botha	24	78	44	2	0	54.54
	V Kohli	run out (Miller)	22	43	34	1	0	64.70
	Yuvraj Singh	c Steyn b Tsotsobe	53	74	68	4	0	77.94
	MS Dhoni*†	b Tsotsobe	38	101	61	1	0	62.29
	SK Raina	lbw b Tsotsobe	11	22	14	1	0	78.57
	RG Sharma	lbw b Morkel	9	29	14	1	0	64.28
	Harbhajan Singh	c Miller b Morkel	3	8	7	0	0	42.85
	Z Khan	c Tsotsobe b Steyn	0	5	3	0	0	0.00
	A Nehra	c Botha b Steyn	1	10	3	0	0	33.33
	MM Patel	not out	6	4	4	1	0	150.00
	Extras	(lb 4, w 3)	7
	Total	(all out; 47.2 overs; 204 mins)	190	(4.01 runs per over)

	South Africa innings (target: 191 runs from 50 overs)		R	M	B	4s	6s	SR
	HM Amla	c †Dhoni b Patel	4	8	9	1	0	44.44
	GC Smith*	b Patel	77	135	98	8	0	78.57
	CA Ingram	lbw b Harbhajan Singh	25	47	30	1	1	83.33
	AB de Villiers†	c †Dhoni b Nehra	8	14	13	1	0	61.53
	JP Duminy	c Vijay b Sharma	13	38	19	1	0	68.42
	DA Miller	c sub (PP Chawla) b Khan	27	36	28	3	1	96.42
	J Botha	lbw b Khan	4	18	7	0	0	57.14
	WD Parnell	c Yuvraj Singh b Patel	12	50	27	1	0	44.44
	DW Steyn	run out (Yuvraj Singh/Vijay)	6	19	14	0	0	42.85
	M Morkel	c sub (YK Pathan) b Patel	6	16	11	1	0	54.54
	LL Tsotsobe	not out	1	4	2	0	0	50.00
	Extras	(lb 5, w 1)	6
	Total	(all out; 43 overs; 193 mins)	189	(4.39 runs per over)

	Bowling	O	M	R	W	Econ
	DW Steyn	9.2	1	35	2	3.75	(1w)
	LL Tsotsobe	10	2	22	4	2.20
	WD Parnell	7	0	43	0	6.14	(1w)
	M Morkel	8	0	32	2	4.00
	J Botha	10	0	35	1	3.50
	JP Duminy	3	0	19	0	6.33	(1w)

Match details

Toss India, who chose to bat Series 5-match series level 1-1

Player of the match MM Patel (India)

Umpires BG Jerling and SJA Taufel (Australia) TV umpire JD Cloete Match referee BC Broad (England) Reserve umpire S George

	Bowling	O	M	R	W	Econ
	Z Khan	9	0	37	2	4.11
	MM Patel	8	0	29	4	3.62
	A Nehra	7	1	44	1	6.28
	Harbhajan Singh	10	0	32	1	3.20
	SK Raina	6	0	27	0	4.50
	RG Sharma	2	0	12	1	6.00
	Yuvraj Singh	1	0	3	0	3.00	(1w)

• ODI no. 3080 | 2010/11 season
• Played at New Wanderers Stadium, Johannesburg
• 15 January 2011 - day/night (50-over match)