Klaasen: 'I knew we needed to target spinners'
The South Africa batter on his match-winning innings
Shreyas Iyer faced 35 balls and still couldn't figure out a way to score runs on this particular Cuttack pitch. The new ball was moving around. Some of the deliveries kept low as well. Iyer tried to attack but wasn't successful. Then he tried to time the ball but that too proved futile.
His struggle ended only when he edged a legcutter behind the stumps. His 40 was the highest score in India's 148 for 6.
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On the same pitch, Heinrich Klaasen, the man who caught Iyer, smashed 81 off just 46 balls. The next best for South Africa was Temba Bavuma's 35, which took 30 balls.
To many, including Dale Steyn, it looked like Klaasen was batting on a different pitch. But even Klaasen said after the game it wasn't that easy. So how did he cruise on a pitch where everyone else seemed to be scraping?
To say Klaasen didn't struggle at all would be a lie. He was on 4 off 12 balls at one stage, but he navigated his path smartly. Apart from that, he also had a couple of other things going for him.
When he came out to bat, South Africa were in a spot of bother at 29 for 3 in the sixth over. But the silver lining was that Bhuvneshwar Kumar, the only Indian bowler who looked threatening on the night and picked up those three wickets, was already into his third over.