I said in my previous column that India couldn’t have wished for a better opportunity than a game against South Africa to send out a message to their World Cup rivals. Well, reflecting on their clinical dismantling of the Proteas at the MCG, the message is loud and clear — the World Champions have well and truly awoken.

The scale of victory did surprise me somewhat, but then I did say there were signs of South Africa’s vulnerability against both New Zealand in the warm-up as well as against Zimbabwe in their opening game. Against the latter, it was, frankly, a brilliant partnership between David Miller and J.P. Duminy that saved South Africa’s blushes.

India knew their chances largely depended on how successfully they could repeat their heroics against Pakistan. They did so, and how! From winning the toss, to their batsmen again posting a challenging target, it was a rousing display rounded off with another impressive showing from the bowlers.

The architects with the bat were again Shikhar Dhawan and Virat Kohli who ensured there were no further hiccups after the early loss of Rohit Sharma. Then another valuable partnership between Dhawan and Ajinkya Rahane put them on course for a 300 plus total, which, as we are seeing with every passing match in this World Cup, is proving tough to chase down.

I’m really pleased to see Dhawan, my old Delhi Daredevils team-mate, return to form. He had a splendid start to his international career but has gone through some lean patches since then, the most recent one occurring during the Test series against Australia and the tri-series which followed.

I’m sure he’ll be proud of the manner he’s come back from being dropped in that fourth Test at Sydney. He was given a life when Hashim Amla dropped him off Wayne Parnell when he was only on 53, but good batsmen make you pay for the smallest mistakes and that’s exactly what Dhawan did to the South African attack.

With the ball, India barely put a foot wrong. Mohammed Shami and Mohit Sharma particularly seem to have hit good form. Sharma also played a crucial hand in the run-out of AB de Villiers.

If you’re playing South Africa and you manage to get de Villiers out before he has cut loose, you know you’ve taken a huge step towards victory.

Zimbabwe, too, did that, but then India’s bowling attack being superior, the world champions were able to assert their dominance once he was back in the pavilion.

The past three months haven’t given Indian fans much to smile about. But they are smiling and smiling broadly now as the World Cup is seeing it all come together rather nicely for M.S. Dhoni and his men.

Published in Dawn February 23rd , 2015

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