India’s undefeated streak in the T20 World Cup was ended by South Africa in their Super 8 encounter at the Narendra Modi Stadium on Sunday as the Men in Blue fell short by 76 runs. Chasing a target of 188 to win, India were under the cosh straightaway when they lost Ishan Kishan for 0.
Tilak Varma’s ordinary tournament continued as he was dismissed for 1 before Abhishek Sharma, who had scored back to back ducks, finally found some runs but was gone for 15. Washington Sundar, who was brought in at No.5 was the next to depart, scoring just 11 before skipper Suryakumar Yadav followed suit with a score of 18.
Hardik Pandya, Rinku Singh and Arshdeep Singh scored 18, 0 and 1 respectively as India lost 7 wickets even before reaching 100 runs. Shivam Dube top-scored with 42 while Marco Jansen and Keshav Maharaj were the pick of the Proteas bowling lineup, taking 4 and 3 wickets respectively. The loss means that India’s next two matches against Zimbabwe in Chennai and West Indies in Kolkata becomes of paramount importance if they are to qualify for the semifinals. This was also India’s worst defeat in T20 World Cups by the margin of runs.
Earlier, David Miller rolled back the years with exhilarating strokes but Jasprit Bumrah’s superb initial and end act restricted South Africa to a par score of 187 for seven.
Miller, standing on the cusp of 37, struck 63 off 35 balls and got fine support from young Dewald Brevis (45 off 29 balls) after Bumrah (3/15 in 4 overs) and Arshdeep Singh (2/28 in 4 overs) had reduced the Proteas to 20 for 3 inside the first four overs.
Bumrah, who got two wickets in his first two overs for just seven runs, took one more wicket giving away just 8 more runs across the 17th and 19th over that he sent down.
In all he bowled 12 dot balls, amounting to two maiden overs.
The Proteas did find themselves down in the dumps but veteran Miller and young Brevis launched a counter-attack that was both swift and brutal.
They added 97 in just 8.2 overs and the hallmark of their batting was the technique against spinner Varun Chakravarthy (1/47 in 4 overs), who was made to look pedestrian on the day.
Between the duo, they clobbered half a dozen of maximums (three apiece) but just when the black-soil strip at the Motera started helping the stroke players, the duo got out.
It was Tristan Stubbs (44 not out off 24 balls), who took South Africa past the 185-run mark with a couple of huge sixes off the final two deliveries of the innings bowled by Hardik Pandya.
(With agency inputs)
