New Delhi:
South African young gun Tristan Stubbs’s resilient 41-ball 47, a Gerald Coetzee cameo (19 of 9) and a stellar bowling performance brought South Africa home after they were 86 for 7 in a chase of 124, to win by 3 wickets. Varun Chakravarthy’s career best figures of 5 of 17 went in vain for the visitors who couldn’t replicate their big batting performance from two nights ago.
In complete contrast to the first T20I, India’s Innings never took off. The visitors lost three wickets within the first four overs thereby hindering the batting performance. Sanju Samson, who scored consecutive hundreds in the last two games, was bowled for a duck by Marco Jansen in the first over which turned out to be a wicket maiden. South Africa also stuck to bowling the pacers in the power play, unlike two days ago, and immediately reaped the rewards, as Gerald Coetzee scalped Abhishek Sharma, who top-edged a pull shot to short fine-leg after the bowler had a decision for caught-behind overturned.
Things got worse for India as Suryakumar Yadav was given LBW to an Andile Simelane yorker which left India reeling at 15-3. But Axar Patel looked at his best when he scored two timely boundaries against Simelane.
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Pandya then carried on to up the ante as he hit Jansen for two fours and a six, farming the strike while batting with Arshdeep Singh. The last over yielded only six runs for India but saw Pandya dropped by Aiden Markram and Coetzee.
In reply, South Africa scored four boundaries within the first three overs before Ryan Rickelton flicked a slower ball from Arshdeep to the fielder at deep backward square-leg. New batter Markram was rattled by a Pandya bouncer which hit him flush on the helmet, and was subsequently castled by Chakravarthy in the next over. The offspinner then castled Reeza Hendricks in his second over.
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The move to promote Marco Jansen didn’t work as he too was bowled by Chakaravarthy. He then went on to pick up the dangerous Heinrich Klaasen and David Miller off successive deliveries as the hosts stumbled to 66 for 6. Stubbs remained watchful and assessed the conditions all this while. However, Simelane, who was slowly growing in confidence, attempted an ugly hoick which saw his stumps rattled.
The move to promote Marco Jansen didn’t work as he too was bowled by Chakaravarthy. He then went on to pick up the dangerous Heinrich Klaasen and David Miller off successive deliveries as the hosts stumbled to 66 for 6. Stubbs remained watchful and assessed the conditions all this while. However, Simelane, who was slowly growing in confidence, attempted an ugly hoick which saw his stumps rattled.
