Riding on Rohit Sharma's maiden fifty and RP Singh's four-wicket haul that wrecked South Africa, a spirited India spanked the hosts by 37 runs to storm into the semifinals of the Twenty20 cricket World Cup at Durban.
With this defeat, South Africa crashed out of the world cup cricket tournament with New Zealand making it to the semifinals on better run rate.
India will now meet Australia in the first semifinal on Saturday, while New Zealand meet Pakistan in the second match the same day.
Batting first, India survived a top order collapse to score 153 for five with Sharma (50 not out) and Mahendra Singh Dhoni (45) propping up the innings.
In reply, South Africa could manage only 116 for nine with Albie Morkel and Mark Boucher contributing 36 each.
Defending a not-so-impressive target, Indian bowlers decided to have a go at the hosts and RP Singh led the way with a two-wicket burst in his first over.
His first delivery trapped Herschelle Gibbs (1) and the fourth delivery kissed Graeme Smith's blade before nestling into the gloves of an airborne Dinesh Kaarthick, who dived full length to his left to pull off an absolute stunner.
South Africa slumped to 12 for two and the worse was yet to come.
S Sreesanth then joined the party and AB de Villiers was beaten by the pace as the delivery struck his pad in front of the wicket and Simon Taufel had no qualms upholding the appeal.
Lot depended on Justin Kemp (5) but Rohit Sharma's brilliant piece of fielding meant it was not to be his day.
Boucher had pushed it to off-side and set out for a single when the fielder swooped on the ball and broke the stumps with a direct hit with Kemp yet to make his ground.
And it was double whammy in the sixth over as RP Singh crashed the fifth delivery through Shaun Pollock's (0) gate as the hosts lost top half of their batting order with the score reading a mere 31.
Boucher (36, 41b, 4x4) and Morkel (36,) stemmed the rot with Boucher hitting Harbhajan Singh for three fours in a row in the 13th over.
However in the 17th over, Boucher dragged a Sreesanth delivery onto his stumps to end the 69-run stand and Harbhajan had Vernon Philander stumped in the next over.
RP Singh then returned to remove Morkel and the game was over by then.
Earlier, Rohit Sharma's unbeaten 50 and his 85-run stand with Dhoni bailed India out of a morass following a top order slump.
Having won the toss and deciding to bat first, India were in dire straits at 33 for three in the sixth over.
And it was only to due a fighting fifth wicket stand between Sharma and Dhoni that pulled the side from rut to respectability.
The side was clearly missing Yuvraj Singh, architect of Wednesday's sensational win against England, who sat out with an elbow injury.
Sharma, who made his debut just 24 hours ago against England but didn't get to bat, batted sensibly and with controlled aggression to remain unbeaten on 50, reaching his half century in style by pulling the last ball of the innings from Johan van der Wath for a six over square leg. He faced 40 balls and hit seven fours and two sixes.
S C O R E B O A R D
South Africa:
H Gibbs lbw b RP Singh 1, G Smith c Karthick b RP Singh 4, A de Villiers lbw b Sreesanth 1, J Kemp run out 5, M Boucher b Sreesanth 36, S Pollock b RP Singh 0, A Morkel b RP Singh 36, V Philander st Kaarthick b Harbhajan 2, J van der Wath st Karthick b Harbhajan 2, M Morkel not out 1, M Ntini not out 4
Extras (LB-9, W-15) 24
Total (For 9 wickets in 20 overs) 116
Fall of wickets: 1-11, 2-12, 3-12, 4-30, 5-31, 6-100, 7-103, 8-109, 9-111.
Bowling: S Sreesanth 4-0-23-2; RP Singh 4-0-13-4; Joginder Sharma 4-0-24-0; Irfan Pathan 4-0-16-0; Harbhajan Singh 4-0-31-2.
India:
Gautam Gambhir c Smith b Pollock 19, Virender Sehwag c Boucher b Ntini 11, Dinesh Kaarthick c A Morkel b Pollock 0, Robin Uthappa c Smith b M Morkel 15, Rohit Sharma not out 50, MS Dhoni run out 45, Irfan Pathan not out 0
Extras (B-2, BL-2, W-8, NB-1) 13
Total (For 5 wickets in 20 overs) 153
Fall of wickets: 1-32, 2-33, 3-33, 4-61, 5-146.
Bowling: Pollock 4-0-17-2; Ntini 4-0-30-1; van der Wath 4-0-43-0; M Morkel 4-0-32-1; Philander 2-0-14-0; JA Morkel 2-0-13-0. - Source: DDNEWS
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