Smith captaincy key in win

Smith enjoyed a very good day both in terms of his leadership and tactical decisions.

The opening 13 overs were a bitter experience for South Africa, as a fountain of runs flowed from the bats of Sachin Tendulkar and Virender Sehwag, and Smith chose a seemingly hopeless decision review on a Robin Peterson leg-before appeal to call his men together.

"The first review was really just to bring the guys together. The way Sachin and Viru were playing and the noise from the crowd made it difficult to connect with the guys and re-group. I said to them that we needed to show composure, keep our heads and string a few good overs together. We just had to hang in there and set ourselves targets along the way. We ended up beating them [the targets] by miles!" Smith revealed after the legendary victory.

Even though Steyn, Morne Morkel and Jacques Kallis disappeared for 93 runs in the first 11 overs, Smith still decided to take the bowling powerplay in its usual slot and entrusted the spinners to handle it. Peterson was brought on to bowl the 12th over and JP Duminy was then called up to bowl ahead of Johan Botha.

"I felt JP could cope with bowling in the powerplay, he's done it before for us in ODIs and Pro20 games. I wanted to use Johan later because I wanted him to control the middle overs," Smith explained.

It turned out to be visionary leadership, and Botha answered his captain's call perfectly as he bowled his first eight overs for 30 runs. The off-spinner's excellent effort finally allowed South Africa to apply some pressure, that first led to Sehwag getting out and then some over-ambitious strokeplay later in the innings that led to India's extraordinary collapse of nine for 29.

Left to chase 297, everyone knew South Africa's batting powerplay would be crucial and they seemed to have rushed it when they took it in the 37th over, with Duminy having faced just two balls.

But fortunately, the left-hander was quickly into his stride and it went very well for South Africa, who scored 52 for one in those five overs.

"We discussed beforehand that Zaheer Khan has most of his success in the batting powerplay, and after he had bowled his two overs in the middle, we felt it would be a good time to take it. We stuck to our guns, even though there was a new batsman there, and it worked out well," Smith said.

Such planning allied to an ability to think quickly on their feet will stand South Africa in very good stead later in the tournament.