de Villiers bludgeons India

It was AB de Villiers who played the most aggressive knock of the innings to lift South Africa from a good total to an imposing one which proved too much for the Indians in the end. It was a wonderful hundred, not just because it came off so few deliveries, but because at no stage it looked he was swinging wildly. What stood out was his immense skill in picking the gaps and the clinical fashion in which he thwarted MS Dhoni's strategy to contain him. The leg side was more heavily populated, be it for spin or seam, but de Villiers used the inside-out drive to perfection. Perhaps, Dhoni was trying to force him into doing that and hoping for a mistake but it never came as de Villiers continued to pull off one off drive after another.

The bat swing was clean, the head was still and the runs kept coming in a flood. He swung a couple of deliveries to the leg side boundary but he never gave the sense that he was slogging at any point. For the main part, he was looking to off drive and when the bowlers tried to cramp him with the alteration in line, he pinged the on side with five fours and couple of sixes. It was simple in its thought and complex in its execution but he pulled it off without seemingly breaking into a sweat. The best shot was probably a nonchalant inside-out lofted cover drive against Ravindra Jadeja though there were two really sweetly timed peachy off drives off Sreesanth that stood out for its classy elegance. He was on 90 at the start of the final over of the innings and reached the landmark with a six and a four to midwicket boundary.