Ongama Gcwabe
India: 124/6
Hardik Pandya 39*; Aiden Markram 1/4
South Africa: 128/7
Tristan Stubbs 47*; Varun Chakravarthy 5/17
South Africa won by three wickets with six balls to spare
In a nail-biting encounter at St George’s Park, the Proteas staged a thrilling comeback on Sunday, defeating India in a anxious victory to level the T20I series at 1-1. A heroic, unbeaten 47 runs off 41 balls from Tristan Stubbs and Gerald Coetzee’s unbeaten 19 runs off nine balls saw South Africa chase down the 125 runs set by India with an over to spare.
The Proteas’ run chase was flawed throughout as leg-breaks Varun Chakravarthy (5/17) and Ravi Bishnoi (1/21) brought the recent horrors of the Tour of the UAE to South Africa: As the Proteas batters were absolutely dominated by the Afghanistan spinners in the UAE, they would be owned by the Indian spin attack here at home as well.
Chakravarthy picked up a five-for and accounted for South Africa’s so-called best players of spin in Heinrich Klaasen (2) and David Miller (0), just as he had done in the first T20I in Durban. The right-arm leggie got the better of Reeza Hendricks (24), Marco Jansen (7) and Proteas captain Aiden Markram (3), who’s horrid form in T20Is continues, too.
The two spinners got the visitors back into the game as the chase looked doomed with the Proteas in a spot of bother on 86/7 with only four overs remaining. With the spinners having gone through their spells, Stubbs was joined by Coetzee in the middle and they took the attack to the visitors and successfully transferred the pressure.
A few blows from Coetzee off Avesh Khan’s third over and Stubbs’ three boundaries off Arshdeep Singh’s fourth over saw the hosts level the series.
Earlier, the Proteas bowling attack led from the front in an attempt to redeem themselves following the thrashing they had been subjected to in the series opener in Durban last Friday. From the get-go, the attack was on the money as left-arm fast bowler Marco Jansen took the new ball and set the tone for the entire attack with a wicket maiden over.
With a fair covering of grass at St George’s Park, Jansen took full advantage as he clean bowled Sanju Samson for a duck to give South Africa their most prized wicket. Gerald Coetzee, who too was on a 12-week conditioning break with Jansen since July, backed up Jansen’s excellent first over with the wicket of left-handed batter Abhishek Sharma to hand South Africa their second scalp of the day.
Coetzee beat Sharma for pace as he sent down a 146km/h short ball at the batter, who then top-edged it to Jansen at short fine leg to give South Africa their third wicket. While Jansen was kept in the attack for the third over of the match, captain Aiden Markram took Coetzee out of the attack and gave the ball to Andile Simelane who was playing his second international match.
The youngster struck in his very first over as he trapped India captain Suryakumar Yadav in front to get his maiden international wicket and most importantly leave India on 34/3 after the first powerplay.
From there on in, the Proteas just did not take their foot off India’s neck as the attack kept taking wickets while keeping the visitors quiet.
Despite solid efforts with the bat from Hardik Pandya (39*, 4x4, 1x6), Axar Patel (27, 4x4) and Tilak Varma (20, 1x6,1x6), on the day, the Proteas bowling attack was just too good as leg spinner Nqabayomzi Peter (1/20) and Markram’s (1/4) prevailed and saw India set a mediocre 124/6 in their allotted 20 overs.