Following a terribly long chat with Team India’s on-field think-tank – Sachin Tendulkar, Zaheer Khan and skipper MS Dhoni – the gangly Ashish Nehra geared up to deliver the final over of the match. With a thousand screaming voices on his back, and the equation reading 13 required off six deliveries, Nehra wobbled in towards Robin Peterson. After a sequence of shots that read 4,6,2,4, Nehra was spared from bowling the last two deliveries of his over, as both a celebrating Peterson and a muted VCA Stadium told the story – South Africa had successfully chased down 296 without ever threatening to choke. India, on the other hand, lost the game by three-wickets — their first defeat of this World Cup.
