South Africa beat India by 3 wickets in the second T20 International match. After losing the toss and batting first, Team India scored 124 runs for 6 wickets in 20 overs. South Africa achieved the target of 125 runs in 19 overs with the loss of 7 wickets. Tristan Stubbs played an unbeaten innings of 47 runs. He was the highest run scorer in this low scoring match.
At one point, the African team was struggling with the loss of 7 wickets at the score of 86 runs. The pitch was helping the spinners and Varun Chakraborty took 5 wickets. However, captain Suryakumar Yadav decided to bowl death overs with the fast bowlers. The decision proved costly for the team and Stubbs and Gerard Cooties (19 off 9 balls) put on an unbeaten partnership of 42 off 20 balls for the 8th wicket. Here Indian spinner Akshar Patel had three overs left.
Gerald Coetzee took the match to South Africa with a six off Arshdeep Singh in the 17th over.
Match Analysis in 5 Points
1. Stubbs' innings took the match away from India Chasing a target of 125 runs, South Africa started cautiously. The team lost only one wicket at the score of 32 runs after 5 overs. From here, Varun Chakraborty took 5 wickets and sent South Africa on the back foot. Here the home team's score was 66/6, but Tristan Stubbs, who came in to bat at number-4, stood at one end, stayed till the end and scored 47 runs to lead the team to victory. He was awarded Player of the Match for this performance.
2. Reasons for defeat
- Top order failure: Team India's top order flopped badly after losing the toss and coming to bat first. Sanju Samson could not even open his account, while Abhishek Sharma and captain Suryakumar Yadav were dismissed with 4 runs each. The team lost the first 3 wickets at the score of 15 runs.
- The tally starts after the fall of 6 wickets: Tilak Verma, Akshar Patel and Hardik Pandya took over the innings after the early wicket fell. India lost 6 wickets for 87 runs, here Arshdeep Singh came in to bat, which Hardik couldn't believe. He dropped a lot of singles, due to which the team managed to score only 31 runs in the last 4 overs. Here Hardik was finally alone.
- Surya's weak captaincy: Despite the small target, India made a brilliant comeback in the match. The team lost 7 wickets to South Africa for 88 runs in 16 overs. Here, spinner Akshar Patel had 3 overs to spare, having conceded just 2 runs against Stubbs in the first over. In place of Akshar, Surya made Pacers bowl.
3. The game changer of the match South Africa lost their 7th wicket in the 16th over, where Gerald Coetzee came in to bat. He hit 2 fours and a six against Arshdeep Singh and Awesh Khan. His batting made Stubbs' job easier at the non-striker's end. Gerald Coetzee scored 19 runs off 9 balls. He spent only 11 runs in the last 2 overs against Hardik in the first innings. Due to which India could not make a big score.
Gerald Coetzee conceded just 11 runs off 12 balls in the death overs.
4. Fighter of the match Varun Chakraborty Team India scored 124 runs in the first innings and almost lost the match. The team looked weak in the first 5 overs of the second innings as well, after which Varun Chakraborty came in to bowl. who took a wicket in each over and took 5 wickets in the spell to put the home team on the back foot. Varun ended his spell in the 13th over, after which South Africa were 67/6. However, his performance could not win the team.
5. Match Report: Bad start for India Team India, who came to bat first after losing the toss, lost 3 wickets in the powerplay. After 6 overs, the team could score only 34 runs. Sanju Samson could not even open an account. Abhishek Sharma and Suryakumar Yadav were dismissed with 4 runs each.
The team could score only 124 runs after losing 6 wickets in 20 overs. For the team, Hardik Pandya scored 39 runs, Akshar Patel scored 27 runs and Tilak Verma scored 20 runs. The rest of the batsmen could not even touch the 10-run mark. For South Africa, Marco Jensen, Gerald Coetzee, Andile Simelane, Aidan Markram and Ann Peter got 1 wicket each. A batter was also run out.
Image Credit: (Divya-Bhaskar): Images/graphics belong to (Divya-Bhaskar).
