Tristan Stubbs’ mature 41-ball 47, a Gerald Coetzee cameo (19 off 9) and a clever bowling performance gave South Africa series parity after they were 86 for 7 in a chase of 124, to win by three wickets. Varun Chakaravarthy’s career-best figures of 5 for 17 went in vain for the visitors who couldn’t replicate their big batting performance from two nights ago.
In complete contrast to the first T20I, India’s innings never took off. The visiitors lost three wickets within the first four overs thereby hindering the batting performance. Sanju Samson, who scored consecutive centuries in his last two games, was bowled for a duck by Marco Jansen in the first over which turned out to be a wicket-maiden. South Africa also stuck to bowling the pacers in the PowerPlay, unlike two days ago, and immediately reaped the rewards, as Gerald Coetzee scalped Abhishek Sharma, who top-edged a pull to short fine-leg after the bowler had a decision for caught-behind overturned.
Things got worse for India as Suryakumar Yadav was given LBW to an Andile Simelane yorker which left India reeling at 15 for 3. But Axar Patel looked at his best when he scored two timely boundaries against Simelane. Tilak Varma too got into the act with a six but his run-a-ball stay of 20 came to an end when David Miller took a stunning one-handed catch at cover.
Axar scored two more boundaries off Nqaba Peter before he was run out at the bowler’s end off a straight drive by Hardik Pandya. The South Africans managed to keep Pandya at bay for majority of his innings as the batter scored his first boundary off only his 27th ball in the 17th over. In between, Peter picked up his second wicket of Rinku Singh who skied a slog-sweep to Coetzee.
Pandya then carried on to up the ante as he hit Jansen for two fours and a six, farming the strike while batting with Arshdeep Singh. The last over yielded only six runs for India but saw Pandya dropped by Aiden Markram and Coetzee.
In reply, South Africa scored four boundaries within the first three overs before Ryan Rickelton flciked a slower ball from Arshdeep to the fielder at deep backward square-leg. New batter Markram was rattled by a Pandya bouncer which hit him flush on the helmet, and was subsequently castled by Chakravarthy in the next over. The offspinner then castled Reeza Hendricks in his second over.
The move to promote Marco Jansen didn’t work as he too was bowled by Chakaravarthy. He then went on to pick up the dangerous Heinrich Klaasen and David Miller off successive deliveries as the hosts stumbled to 66 for 6. Stubbs remained watchful and assessed the conditions all this while. However, Simelane, who was slowly growing in confidence, attempted an ugly hoick which saw his stumps rattled.
With 37 needed off the last four overs, India switched to pace and South Africa switched gears immediately as Coetzee clobbered Arshdeep for a 103-metre six. The batter then helped himself to two more boundaries off Avesh Khan in a 12-run over. Stubbs then sealed the win for the hosts in the penultimate over with four boundaries of Arshdeep Singh.
Brief Scores: India 124/6 in 20 overs (Hardik Pandya 39*, Axar Patel 27; Aiden Markram 1-4, Nqaba Peter 1-20) lost to South Africa 128/7 in 19 overs (Tristan Stubbs 47*, Reeza Hendricks 24; Varun Chakravarthy 5-17, Ravi Bishnoi 1-21) by 3 wickets