CARDIFF–Shikhar Dhawan struck a maid­en one-day in­ter­na­tion­al cen­tu­ry to set up In­dia's 26-run win over South Africa in a high-scor­ing Cham­pi­ons Tro­phy open­er yes­ter­day, lift­ing the gloom in In­di­an crick­et amid a spot-fix­ing scan­dal back home.

Dhawan's 94-ball 114 and a late flur­ry of bound­aries by Ravin­dra Jade­ja (47 not out) helped the world cham­pi­ons post 331-7 un­der sun­ny skies, leav­ing the Pro­teas re­quir­ing a record run chase in Cardiff to win the Group B fix­ture.

The South Africans re­cov­ered from los­ing two ear­ly wick­ets to be well po­si­tioned on 155-2 in the 25th over, but a run out of Robin Pe­ter­son (68) and cap­tain AB de Vil­liers' de­par­ture for 70 left the pre-tour­na­ment favourites with too much to do and they were bowled out for 305 on the fi­nal ball.

Al­ready shorn of star bowler Dale Steyn (side strain), the Pro­teas may have to do with­out fel­low pace­man Morne Morkel for the rest of the tour­na­ment af­ter he sus­tained a left groin in­jury mid­way through his sev­enth over. He came out as South Africa's last bats­man, with vic­to­ry still just about in sight, but strug­gled to run be­tween the wick­ets.

South Africa needs to beat Pak­istan at Edg­bas­ton on Mon­day to stay alive in the tour­na­ment but In­dia looks in much bet­ter shape as it at­tempts to add an­oth­er 50-over ICC tro­phy to its World Cup ti­tle from 2011.

The In­di­ans came to Eng­land and Wales with a youth­ful squad as it looks to the fu­ture af­ter the gold­en pe­ri­od of Sachin Ten­dulkar, Rahul Dravid and oth­ers, and Dhawan is among those to ben­e­fit from the se­lec­tors' for­ward-look­ing ap­proach.

Hav­ing ex­plod­ed on­to the test scene by mak­ing 187 off 174 balls against Aus­tralia in Mo­hali in March for the fastest cen­tu­ry by a debu­tant, he's now made his mark in the lim­it­ed-overs for­mat. Play­ing on­ly his sixth ODI, the left-han­der set a fierce pace with Ro­hit Shar­ma (65) as the open­ers pun­ished a slew of short, er­rat­ic de­liv­er­ies to make a 127-run part­ner­ship.

"Ro­hit and Shikhar gave us a re­al­ly good plat­form," In­dia cap­tain MS Dhoni said.

Dhawan's 12th four, a sharp pull, brought up his 80-ball cen­tu­ry and he took his hel­met off to re­veal his trade­mark twirled mous­tache and ear­ring as he re­ceived the ac­claim of In­dia's bois­ter­ous fans in­side Sophia Gar­dens in south Wales. De­prived of Morkel, the Pro­teas con­tin­ued to leak runs de­spite tak­ing wick­ets at reg­u­lar in­ter­vals in the fi­nal 16 overs. Dhawan even­tu­al­ly fell to JP Du­miny but Jade­ja picked up the man­tle, en­thralling the crowd with a late 29-ball sal­vo that fea­tured sev­en fours and a big six.

"It was an amaz­ing ef­fort to keep them down to be­low 350," South Africa cap­tain De Vil­liers said.

It was all-rounder Jade­ja who would prove to be an in­stru­men­tal fig­ure dur­ing South Africa's chase, too.

Col­in In­gram (6) and Hashim Am­la (22) fell ear­ly to leave South Africa on 31-2 but Pe­ter­son and De Vil­liers stead­ied the in­nings with a part­ner­ship of 124. That end­ed, though, af­ter a piece of sharp field­ing from Jade­ja, who dived to stop a dri­ve from Pe­ter­son and showed alert­ness to quick­ly throw to the wick­et­keep­er's end and leave the bats­man strand­ed.

The Pro­teas then lost JP Du­miny (14), De Vil­liers and David Miller (0) in the space of 13 balls and In­dia slow­ly cleaned up the tail de­spite a fine un­beat­en knock of 71 from Ryan McLaren. Jade­ja had fig­ures of 2-31 off nine overs.

Score­board

In­dia

Ro­hit Shar­ma c Pe­ter­son b McLaren 65

S Dhawan c sub (Phan­si­go) b Du­miny 114

Vi­rat Kohli c Am­la b Tsot­sobe 31

Di­nesh Karthik c De Vil­liers b McLaren 14

MS Dhoni c Du Plessis b Tsot­sobe 27

Suresh Raina c Du­miny, b McLaren 9

Ravin­dra Jade­ja not out 47

Ravichan­dran Ash­win run out 10

Bhu­vnesh­war Ku­mar not out 0

Ex­tras: (4lb, 8w, 2nb) 14

TO­TAL: (for 7 wick­ets) 331

Fall of wick­ets: 1-127, 2-210, 3-227, 4-240, 5-260, 6-291, 7-323. Bowl­ing: Morne Morkel 6.5-0-27-0, Lon­wabo Tsot­sobe 10-0-83-2, Ro­ry Klein­veldt 10-0-81-0, Ryan McLaren 10-0-70-3, Robin Pe­ter­son 3.1-0-24-0, JP Du­miny 10-0-42-1.

South Africa

Hashim Am­la c Dhoni b Ya­dav 22

Col­in In­gram c Raina b Ku­mar 6

Robin Pe­ter­son run out 68

AB de Vil­liers c Jade­ja b Ya­dav 70

JP Du­miny lbw b Jade­ja 14

Faf du Plessis c Raina b IShar­ma 30

David Miller run out 0

Ryan McLaren not out 71

Ro­ry Klein­veldt c Dhoni b IShar­ma 4

Lon­wabo Tsot­sobe b Jade­ja 3

Morne Morkel b Ku­mar 8

Ex­tras: (1lb, 7w, 1nb) 9

TO­TAL: (all out) 305

Fall of wick­ets: 1-13, 2-31, 3-155, 4-182, 5-184, 6-188, 7-238, 8-251, 9-257. Bowl­ing: Bhu­vnesh­war Ku­mar 7-0-49-2, Umesh Ya­dav 10-0-75-2, Is­hant Shar­ma 8-0-66-2, Ravichan­dran Ash­win 10-0-47-0, Ravin­dra Jade­ja 9-1-31-2, Suresh Raina 6-0-36-0.

Re­sult: In­dia won by 26 runs.

Toss: South Africa.

Um­pires: Ian Gould, Eng­land, and Bruce Ox­en­ford, Aus­tralia.

Third Um­pire: Rod Tuck­er, Aus­tralia. Match Ref­er­ee: Andy Py­croft, Zim­bab­we.