India fumbled at the last frontier in the fifth one-dayer played against SA  at Super Sports Park,Centurion to go down by 33 runs. In a rain-shortened match, SA beat India by 33 runs by D/L method. MS Dhoni won the toss and chose to field first. The match was reduced to 46 overs-a-side owing to intervention of the rain towards the final stage of the innings.South Africa's innings was built around the opener Hashim Amla's excellent, unconquered knock of 116. He partnered with Morne van Wyk to add 97 runs for the 2nd wicket. Later he combined with JP Duminy to compile 102 runs for the 4th wicket thereby helping SA setting an imposing target of 250 for India to win the one day as well as the series.

For the visitors, Munaf Patel garnered 3 wickets to take his tally of wickets in the series
to 11. Yuvraj too chipped in with 2 wickets.

Indian began the run chase in a poor fashion and kept on losing the wickets regularly.  Among the Indian frontline batsmen, only the substitute opener Parthiv Patel put up some resistance to make 38 runs. Yousuf Pathan raised some hopes in the company of tailender Zaheer Khan but fell to a sky high catch taken by F du Plessis. He feasted the packed crowd with his feisty hits (105, 70 b, 8 sixes, 8 fours) to the fence. However the valiant knock came to an end when he departed for 105 runs. Indian innings folded up at 234. SA speedster Morne Morkel was the hero for the home team as he bagged 4 wickets. He was rightly adjudged the Player of the Series for his tight bowling spell. He scalped 12 victims in the just concluded one-day series.

India frittered away the golden opportunity of winning the one-day series for the first time
in SA. Synonymously, the Indian team tour ended the tour with a loss having begun earlier
with a thumping defeat in the first test of the series.