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India in South Africa / Features

South Africa v India, 1st Test, Johannesburg

Full marks for full length

India's 123-run victory at Johannesburg was their first ever in South Africa. Cricinfo looks at some of the stats highlights of this historic victory

George Binoy

December 18, 2006

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Sreesanth pitched it up and swung the ball, and South Africa's batsmen had no answers © AFP

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India's 123-run victory at Johannesburg was their first ever in South Africa. It has come on their fourth tour, after nine Tests and four humiliating defeats. Cricinfo looks at some of the stat highlights of this historic victory.

With their triumph at Johannesburg, India have now won matches in all Test-playing nations. This was India's 27th overseas win.

India's win was largely the result of some outstanding swing bowling, which the South African batsmen failed to handle. The contrast between the bowling efforts of the two sides comes out quite starkly in these numbers: from the 140 full-length deliveries that the South Africans bowled, India scored 164 runs and lost just one wicket - that's a scoring rate of 7.02 per over. When the Indian bowlers pitched it full, though, they were lethal - the South Africans only managed 136 from 209 such deliveries and lost eight wickets.

South Africa's misplaced confidence in the short stuff comes out clearly in the manner in which they bowled to Sourav Ganguly - 28 of the 139 deliveries that Ganguly faced in this match were short of a length, but, far from being fazed, he creamed 25 runs off them. Equally impressively, Ganguly was in control of 27 of those 28 short balls.

The length that South Africa bowled to Ganguly
Length	Balls	Runs	Runs per over
Full length	20	23	6.90
Good length	91	28	1.84
Short	28	25	5.36

The 123-run defeat is the second-largest in terms of runs inflicted on South Africa at home since their readmission to international cricket in 1991-92. The highest is New Zealand's 137-run victory also at Johannesburg in 1994.

South Africa have now lost six Tests at the Wanderers since 1991-92. They won only seven and drawn five at this venue. It is by far their least successful home ground.

South Africa's 278 in their second innings is their highest total in the final innings of a Test at the Wanderers. The previous highest was 247 in a losing cause against England in 2005.

This defeat was only South Africa's sixth in home Tests to teams other than Australia since their readmission in 1991-92. During this time they have won 37 and drawn 18 out of 61. (Click here for their home record against all teams since their readmission into international cricket.)

George Binoy is editorial assistant of Cricinfo

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George Binoy

Assistant Editor After a major in Economics and nine months in a financial research firm, George realised that equity, capital and the like were not for him. He decided that he wanted to be one of those lucky few who did what they love at work. Alas, his prodigious talent was never spotted and he had to reconcile himself to the fact that he would never earn his money playing cricket for his country, state or even district. He jumped at the opportunity to work for ESPNcricinfo and is now confident of mastering the art of office cricket

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