South Africa handed the Suryakumar Yadav-led India a reality check, thrashing them by 76 runs in the T20 World Cup 2026 Super 8 game at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad on Sunday, ending India’s 12-match winning streak in the T20 World Cup. Incidentally, this is also India’s first loss in 19 games in ICC World Cup events, with the previous defeat coming against Australia at the same venue in the 2023 ODI World Cup final.
In this duration, India had won 17 games while one game was abanoned due to rain. Before this game, the Men in Blue were unbeaten in their last 12 T20 World Cup matches, a run that includes their title-winning campaign in the 2024 T20 World Cup held in the USA and the Caribbean Islands.
India had beaten the same opponent, Aiden Markram’s South Africa, to lift the 2024 T20 World Cup trophy.
South Africa put on 187 after electing to bat first. In reply, India never looked in a position to fight with wicket falling in regular intervals. The home team were bundled out for 111 as South Africa march one step closer to the Super 8 spot.
Assessing India’s poor batting performance, skipper Suryakumar Yadav said: “Sometimes you have to think if you’re chasing 180-185, you can’t win the game in the powerplay, but you might lose the game in the powerplay. We lost too many wickets in that phase, and then we couldn’t have small, small partnerships, which we wanted to have. But then that’s part of the game. We’ll sit back and learn from it, and then come back stronger.”
“We were always in the game when we started. We bowled really well at the beginning to reduce them to 20/3. But then from Overs 7 to 15, I think they batted really well. We came back again in the game later on. Overall, if we see, we bowled really well. But we could have batted a little better,” he added.
