South Africa won the toss at Boland Park and elected to have a bat first.

After a slow start the Proteas managed to score 296/4 in their allotted 50 overs.

This was thanks to an unbeaten 129 by off 96 balls by Rassie van der Dussen and 110 by the captain, Temba Bavuma.

India in their turn were restricted to 265/8 with Shikar Dhawan scoring 79 and Virat Kohli adding 51 runs.

Van der Dussen explained that his strategy with bat on the Paarl-wicket was to targeting the Indian spinners and not to allow them to settle.

“The wicket over here is very slow and if you let the spinner settle it is very tough to rotate straight down the ground.

“There was just not pace to work with and I was batting quite slowly and I thought that I could go to my sweeps.

“Luckily a few of them worked out and I got off to a bit of a flyer and from there it was just about sticking to the plan and trying to put the bowlers under a bit of pressure.”

Van der Dussen went on to laud the coaching staff for giving them the tools to face and attack spin.

“Credit coach staff with Mark Boucher and the rest of the guys for sort of upskilling us and giving us the tools to sort of fly out there in the middle.

“We've come a long way in the way that we approach and think about spin and executing it in the middle.”

The 2nd ODI will be played on Friday in Paarl.

Morgan Piek OFM Sport