Aiden Markram and David Miller walked South Africa through a tricky run chase and handed India their first loss of the T20 World Cup by 5 wickets here at Perth Stadium on Sunday.
Batting first, riding on Suryakumar Yadav’s half-century, India posted a decent total of 133/9 on the board. In response, Proteas men chase down the target with 137/5 despite a slow start, with two balls to spare.
It was evident that the Perth wicket wasn’t going to be easy for the batters and Arshdeep gave it back when he sent back Quinton de Kock and Rilee Rossouw, fresh off back-to-back T20I tons, in his first over.
There was no recovery early on for South Africa as Bavuma’s struggles continued. At 24/3, South Africa needed a strong recovery and Aiden Markram provided that with a composed innings helped by a steady David Miller at the other end.
At the 10-over mark, South Africa had only gotten to 40, but importantly hadn’t lost further wickets. Markram and Miller stepped up after the break to take 16 runs off Hardik Pandya’s over and then piled on runs against Ashwin too to bring the required run rate down.
Markram completed a fine half-century, playing some exquisite shots along the way and helped by a dropped catch from Virat Kohli and a missed run-out chance by skipper Rohit Sharma, but he fell shortly afterwards, mistiming a pull off Hardik Pandya.
The equation had eased by this stage with the partnership putting South Africa on course for a win. But there was more drama in store with Ravichandran Ashwin sending back Tristan Stubbs in the 18th over after Miller hit a couple of sixes off him.
With Shami delivering a terrific penultimate over, South Africa needed six runs off the last over and Miller, now past his fifty, off strike.
However, with Miller back on strike, Bhuvneshwar got his bouncer off radar and conceded a four off Miller’s gloves and South Africa completed a tense win to top the table in Group 2.
Earlier, Surya’s 68 off 40 helped India post a decent total on the board. He completed his ninth half-century of the year in the shorter-format to help India score 133/9 in 20 overs, falling only in the penultimate over of the innings.
India got off to a rocky start after opting to bat first with the South Africa quicks enjoying the pace and bounce in Perth. While skipper Rohit and KL Rahul pummelled a six apiece early on, Ngidi sent back Rohit with a short ball that hurried up the Indian skipper and found the top edge off the pull.
Rahul fell soon after, edging Ngidi to the slip cordon in the same over to depart for nine and Surya came on bat.
Kohli got into groove with a fine drive followed by a flick. Both Kohli and Surya racing away for boundaries, but the former fell on the pull too, top edging Lungi Ngidi to Rabada in the deep.
Kohli, though, completed 1000 runs in the T20 World Cup, becoming the first after Mahela Jayawardene and the first Indian to the milestone.
Deepak Hooda, who had come in for Axar Patel, fell to Anrich Nortje and India found themselves in a similar situation to that against Pakistan – at 42/4 in the 8th over.
Pandya followed in the next over as they lost half the side with just 49 runs on the board.
Surya led the recovery, establishing his authority over the bowlers in typical fashion. Even as the likes of Dinesh Karthik and Ashwin too took time to settle down.
He continued at a frenetic pace, leading India’s recovery and getting the total up to respectable levels.
