News

SAvIND, 2nd T20I: Proteas restore parity despite Chakaravarthy’s heroics

By Mumbai Indians

A good day at the office for South Africa meant the visitors slipped to a three-wicket defeat at St. George's Park, Gqeberha.

Opting to field first amidst slight drizzle during the toss, the Aiden Markram-led side made the most of the conditions on offer to trouble the visitors throughout the first innings.

Although Varun Chakaravarthy came out all guns blazing with his maiden five-wicket haul in international cricket, a final flourish by Gerald Coetzee and Tristan Stubbs towards the end of the second innings took the match away from India.

Let’s take a look at how a low-scoring thriller ended in favour of South Africa.

Team India struggles right from the onset

The pace trio of Marco Jansen, Gerald Coetzee and Andile Simelane made life difficult for the Indian top order in the powerplay phase.

In-form batter Sanju Samson fell for a duck, followed by Abhishek Sharma and SKY as they found themselves reeling at 34/3.

Tilak Varma & Axar Patel’s handy contributions

Aamcha TV scored run-a-ball 20 before departing courtesy of David Miller’s one-handed stunner.

Meanwhile, Axar Patel was looking in good touch at 27, hitting four boundaries to steady the team’s boat. However, an unfortunate dismissal via run-out cut short his innings, with the scoreboard reading 70/5 at the end of 12 overs.

HP’s gritty knock spares the blushes

Arriving at the crease with his team in a spot of bother, our Kung Fu Pandya showed great maturity to navigate through a tough situation to get the Indian innings back on track.

Smashing four fours and a maximum en route to his unbeaten 45-ball 39, HP ensured the Indian Cricket team got back on the field to defend a reasonable total of 124.

Varun’s chakravyuh just wasn’t enough…

Right-arm spinner Varun Chakarvarthy’s one-for-the-ages spell gave India a real chance to fight for the victory as the opposition batters looked completely clueless against some of his mesmerising googlies.

Chakaravarthy was well-supported by Ravi Bishnoi, whose economical 1/21 in four overs kept the opposition quiet.

But, the Stubbs-Coetzee duo hit a combined 40 runs off the 17th, 18th and 19th overs to guide their side to a win, much to the agony of Team India and fans alike.

 

Brief scores: India 124/6 in 20 overs (Hardik Pandya 39*, Axar Patel 27; Aiden Markram 1/4) lost to South Africa 128/7 (Tristan Stubbs 47*; Varun Chakaravarthy 5/17, Ravi Bishnoi 1/21) by three wickets.