Very special batting performance from us: A.B. de Villiers

Rajkot: South Africa skipper A.B. de Villiers on Sunday heaped praise on his batting group and opener Quinton de Kock for his sparkling ton which helped the visitors register an 18-run victory in the third One-Day International (ODI) against India here.

"It was a very special batting performance. Quinton answered a lot of questions just like how Quinton can do. We struggled between the 37th and 44th over but found our way at the end.

"To have Miller up front was out of the box thinking from us. We were looking at 250 as a par, the way we fought back with the ball was special," De Villiers said at the post match presentation ceremony here.

De Kock scored 103 runs and put together a 118-run stand for the third wicket with Faf du Plessis (60) to propel the visitors to a fighting total of 270/7 at the Saurashtra Cricket Association Stadium here.

Morne Morkel then spearheaded the South African attack with an excellent display of pace bowling on the bating friendly wicket as the hosts could only manage 252/6 despite fluent half-centuries from Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma.

The Proteas have thus taken a 2-1 lead in the five-match ODI series. They won the first match in Kanpur by five runs before the Indians levelled the series by registering a 22-run victory at Indore.

The fourth and penultimate ODI will be played in Chennai on October 22.