India cruised to a seven-wicket victory over South Africa on the back of a superb bowling display to take a 2-1 lead in the five-match T20I series. The bowlers restricted the visitors to 117 on a chilly evening in Dharamshala. The modest target was overhauled inside 16 overs. Abhishek Sharma top-scored for India with a fluent 35 off 18 balls, while Shubman Gill laboured to a run-a-ball 28.
India won the toss, which proved crucial, as there was already dew on the ground before the first ball, and batting was expected to get easier as match went on. The first innings all but decided the outcome of the contest.
With the Himachal Pradesh Cricket Association Stadium being at a higher altitude, there was lateral movement for the bowlers. India’s pace bowlers exploited the conditions and made early inroads, with Harshit Rana, replacing Jasprit Bumrah, taking two wickets and Arshdeep Singh bagging one in the Power Play to hand South Africa a poor start. Arshdeep trapped Reeza Hendricks in the first over of the innings. Harshit then got into action. In his first over, he found a tentative Quinton de Kock in front of the stumps. The batter did not move his feet before Dewald Brevis dragged one on to make a mess of his stumps.
From 7/3, the visitors could never recover. Only Aiden Markram showed fight, waging a lone battle for his first half-century in T20Is since 2022. The skipper scored more than half of his team’s runs. A couple of exquisite drives through the off side early on, followed by a couple of sixes late in the innings, proved that the pitch was good to bat on.
Hardik Pandya came into the attack just outside the Power Play and got one to seam away to remove Tristan Stubbs. With that wicket, the seam-bowling all-rounder became the third Indian to complete 100 T20I wickets.
At the halfway mark, Shivam Dube was called upon, and he knocked Corbin Bosch’s leg stump out of the ground with his very first ball. The spinners then did the clean-up job, with four wickets shared between Varun Chakaravarthy and Kuldeep Yadav. Only three extras were conceded by India, and there were no wides from their bowlers.
From the bowlers, the attention then turned to Gill. Coming into the game, India’s vice-captain was under pressure, and that was visible in the way he batted. A run-a-ball 28 in a chase of 118 underlined Gill’s struggle. In his first 12 balls, he scored 20. In the next 16 balls, he managed only eight. From the outset, he looked scratchy, with a couple of edges and misses. His opening partner, Abhishek, smashed boundaries all around the park as India scored 68 runs in the Power Play.
Only 58 runs were required when Abhishek was dismissed, courtesy of a brilliant running catch by Markram. With the required run rate never an issue, it would have been a good opportunity for India to give more time to Suryakumar Yadav by promoting him to No. 3, but the team management opted to continue the right-left combination by sending in Tilak Varma.
Gill and Tilak were content to rotate the strike before a tentative push led to the downfall of the former. Suryakumar could manage only 12 off 11 balls before holing out in the deep.
It was a near-perfect game for India, apart from three dropped catches. Slip-ups in the field have been occurring regularly since the Asia Cup, an area India will need to improve.
Brief scores: South Africa 117 in 20 ovs (Aiden Markram 61, Varun Chakaravarthy 2/11, Kuldeep Yadav 2/12, Arshdeep Singh 2/13, Harshit Rana 2/34;). India 120/3 in 15.5 ovs (Abhishek Sharma 35, Shubman Gill 28).
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