India were handed a comprehensive 51-run drubbing by South Africa in the second game of the five-match T20I series in Mullanpur on Thursday. It's 1-1 now.
After being asked to bat, the Proteas, powered by Quinton De Kock (90 off 46 balls), posted 213/4. But those who thought India would come up with a fitting reply, were left disappointed as the home team managed just 162 in 19.1 overs.
Due to the dew, the ball was wet right through the contest, but the South African bowlers gave a much better account of themselves.
The Mullanpur stadium, which hosted it’s first-ever men’s international game, has a stand named after India’s limited-overs great Yuvraj Singh. Yuvraj, who spent a bit of time with the Indian squad before the start of the game, must have been quite disappointed with the overall performance of this Suryakumar Yadav-led side.
If the effort with the ball was below par, India’s batting, especially that of their top order, was dismal. The top order’s failure was hugely responsible for India's margin of defeat.
Shubman Gill’s difficult phase continued as he perished off the very first ball, looking rather clueless to another well-directed delivery from Lungi Ngidi. Skipper Surya’s lean patch, too, continued, being undone by an away-going ball from Marco Jansen.
Before that, the lanky left-armer did really well to extract a bit of movement to send the explosive Abhishek Sharma back, soon after the opener had smashed him for a huge six. The composed Tilak Varma (62 off 34 balls) tried what he could, but he didn’t get enough support from the other end, with Hardik Pandya (20 off 23 balls) too unable to get going. Keeper-batter Jitesh's 17-ball 27 looked good, but was certainly not enough.
In a nutshell, the South African attack, which isn’t vastly experienced, does deserve credit for keeping India’s batting line-up at bay. Even the likes of Ottneil Baartman (replacing Anrich Nortje) and left-arm spinner George Linde (coming in Keshav Maharaj’s place) complemented Jansen and Ngidi, who focused on the right channels and lengths instead of hurling direction-less deliveries.
The conditions were not easy for the bowling side. But what made the Indian bowling group’s task tougher was the number of wides they bowled, alongside the attempted yorkers that went on to become full tosses. Out of the 22 extras India conceded, 16 of them were wides, with Arshdeep Singh alone bowling nine of them.
In fact, the left-armer had to bowl 13 balls in the 11th over because of the number of wides he bowled.
Varun Chakravarthy (2/29) tried his best to keep the scoring rate in check. Thanks to Varun, who dismissed the other Proteas opener, Reeza Hendricks and skipper Aiden Markram, and also did well to keep De Kock under a leash, there were a few overs where the Proteas were quiet. In the 16th and 17th overs, South Africa managed a total of just eight runs as keeper Jitesh Sharma’s brilliance denied De Kock his first T20I ton versus India before Axar picked up the dangerous Dewald Brevis.
But barring those two overs and Jasprit Bumrah’s first, India’s bowlers got a hammering from De Kock, whose innings featured seven maximums and five boundaries. With barely three days to go for the IPL auction in Abu Dhabi on December 16, De Kock certainly came up with a timely knock.
