South Africa leveled the T20I series 1-1 against India courtesy of their impressive performances in the second ODI. The game took place on Sunday (November 10) at St George’s Park in Gqeberha.
Invited to bat first, the Indian team were rocked by back-to-back wickets. The last game’s centurion, Sanju Samson was dismissed for a duck by Marco Jansen in the first over.
Thereafter, Gerald Coetzee and Andile Simelane got rid of Abhishek Sharma (4) and Suryakumar Yadav (4), respectively. These dismissals left India reeling at 15/3 in the fourth over.
However, Tilak Varma and Axar Patel spent good time at the crease to steer the team at a fine pace, and got the team out of trouble. Their blosomming 30-run stand was broken by Aiden Markram, as David Miller got hold of a sensational one-handed catch of Tilak Varma (20).
Patel (27) was picking up momentum, but a firm straight drive from Hardik Pandya got a contact from Nqabayomzi Peter’s hand and caught him short of the non-striker’s crease. Soon, Rinku Singh (9) continued his bad form to get dismissed by Peter.
Thereafter, Pandya (39* off 45) remained unbeaten as India managed to post a below-par total of 124. All the bowlers except Keshav Maharaj picked a solitary wicket each.
Varun Chakravarthy’s fifer couldn’t help India win the game
Chasing 125, the Proteas were off to a fine start, as Ryan Rickelton and Reeza Hendricks accumulated runs at a quick pace. However, Arshdeep Singh secured a breakthrough of Rickelton (13) in the third over to open the floodgates for the visitors.
Varun Chakravarthy kept up the pressure from his first over and breached the defense of skipper Aiden Markram (3). In his subsequent over, the right-arm spinner took an important wicket of Hendricks (24). Soon, he got better of Marco Jansen (7), who was promoted to No. 5.
The 13th over witnessed Chakravarthy dismissing Heinrich Klaasen (2) and David Miller (0) in back-to-back balls. He finished with figures of 5/17, with four of them being clean bowled dismissals.
Despite being under pressure at 88/7 after 16 overs, South Africa found support from all-rounder Gerald Coetzee. He timed it sweetly to slam a six and three fours to put South Africa in an advantage position.
Thereafter, a well-set batter Tristan Stubbs slammed four boundaries in the 19th over to finish off the game with six balls to spare. Stubbs (47*) and Coetzee (19*) remained unbeaten as South Africa won by three wickets.
