Tendulkar passes milestone in India win

Tendulkar (93) dominated an opening stand of 134 with Sourav Ganguly, hitting two sixes and 13 fours from 106 balls.

The little master appeared set to make a mockery of a target of 226 for six until his was the third of four wickets to fall for eight runs. But India had enough in reserve in the middle order to recover the situation and get home with six wickets and five balls to spare, thanks to a sensible and unbroken stand of 85 between Yuvraj Singh and Dinesh Karthik.

Tendulkar and Ganguly began the run chase with a flurry of boundaries on a pacy pitch, the former pulling and cutting ferociously against Makhaya Ntini and Charl Langeveldt. There seemed no hiding place either for young off-spinner Thandi Tshabalala, brought into the attack just after Tendulkar had completed his 50 and his 15,000 with the same single off Andre Nel.

Tendulkar proceeded to strike Tshabalala for a six over long-on and four over long-off from successive deliveries - and South Africa were wearing a collectively resigned look by the time Langeveldt returned and had Ganguly poking an aerial drive to square cover.

Rahul Dravid got into a tangle, aborting a pull shot, and dollied a return catch back to Langeveldt - and then Tshabalala got his revenge on Tendulkar when an attempted back cut was instead edged on to the stumps.

Tendulkar, who ran himself out for 99 in the first of these matches, had therefore narrowly missed out on his 42nd ODI hundred for the second time in four days.

After Mahendra Singh Dhoni was then bowled for a duck by a full-length ball from Ntini, it was suddenly game on - and India needed to set aside the Tendulkar celebrations.

Yuvraj and Karthik did so effectively in awkard light, give or take the odd scrape between the wickets - and having come together with barely a run between them, they had the composure to make sure Sunday's final match of three will be a decider.

Earlier, Morne van Wyk's second ODI half-century contributed to a competitive total as he battled to 82 until the 41st over while a typically robust run-a-ball 50 from Mark Boucher oversaw the addition of a par 60 in the last 10 overs.