India lost to South Africa by 76 runs in their first game in the Super 8 at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad on Sunday, February 22.

Aiden Markram won the toss and opted to bat first, noting that the pitch seemed great for batting. Suryakumar Yadav also said that he would have batted first had he won the toss. However, it was India who dominated proceedings in the early goings of the clash.

Jasprit Bumrah got the better of Quinton de Kock in the second over, and Arshdeep Singh dismissed Aidne Markram in the over that followed. Bumrah wasn’t in the mood to relent on the pressure he had created upfront, and he dismissed Ryan Rickelton in his second over.

South Africa were staring down the barrel at 20/3, but David Miller and Dewald Brevis brought them back into the contest with a stunning 97-run partnership off 50 balls. Miller was the more aggressive batter in the stand as he counter-attacked with flair. Brevis took his time to get his eye in and hit some lusty blows later.

Shivam Dube broke the dangerous partnership, as he dismissed Brevis for 45 off 29 balls. Miller, however, continued his dominance and was eventually dismissed in the 16th over after smashing 63 off 35 deliveries.

However, India kept picking crucial wickets at the back end of the innings, even as Tristan Stubbs held fort. The South African batter smashed Hardik Pandya for 20 runs in the last over to take his team to a decent 187/7 in 20 overs.

Bumrah was the pick of the bowlers for India, as he finished with mind-boggling figures of 3/15 in his four overs. Fellow pacer Arshdeep Singh also bagged two wickets.

In reply, Markram started proceedings with three dot balls to Ishan Kishan, and the pressure forced the in-form batter to go for a wild slog. The ball went high up in the air and was safely pouched by Rickelton, who had to backtrack a bit from cover to take the catch.

Marco Jansen was brought on to bowl the second over, and he hit the ground running, dismissing Tilak Varma off the very first ball he bowled. Abhishek Sharma got a start but was dismissed by Corbin Bosch’s brilliance on the field.

Suryakumar Yadav and Washington Sundar tried to steady the ship, but the required run rate kept climbing. Eventually, both batters succumbed to the pressure. In the end, India were bowled out for 11 in 18.5 overs. Dube top-scored with a 37-ball 42. Jansen and Maharaj were the stars with the ball for the Proteas. They bagged four and three wickets, respectively.

Shivam Dube and Hardik Pandya forged a 35-run partnership off 30 balls but South Africa had things well under control. Once Hardik was out in the 15th over, the writing was on the wall. 

Who Said What? 

David Miller, Player of the match

Just about making sure you stick to your strengths and don’t go into your shell. During the powerplay, all fielders were in the ring so thought of going over. Trying to get a partnership as much as we could, and trying to rotate strike. (Main scoring areas) With the nature of this ground, you want to look straight. Smaller there than square. Want to shape up to hit straight and then react. Looking to be nice and aggressive against the spinners. They have world-class bowlers. Have played against them a lot, trying to put them under pressure and about putting yourself in the position to do that.

Suryakumar Yadav, India (Losing captain)

I feel we were always in the game when we started. I think we bowled really well in the beginning, 21 for 3, and the way they batted after that from 7 to 15, I think they batted really well, and then we came back again in the game later on. Overall, if we see, we bowled really well, but we could have batted a little better. My thing is sometimes you’ve got to think, if you’re chasing 180-185, you can’t win the game in the powerplay, but you might lose the game in the powerplay. We lost too many wickets in the powerplay and then we couldn’t have small, small partnerships which we wanted for chasing 180-185, but that’s part of the game. We learn from it, we’ll sit back and then come back stronger. I think everyone knows their combination (Bumrah-Arshdeep) has been very lethal. Both of them have played together. If you see today also, both of them bowled eight overs, picked around five wickets and gave around 45-50 runs. If I’m not wrong, I’m not good with numbers. But they bowled really well in partnership and that’s what we want from them. Both are experienced and it’s good to have both of them in our side. Hopefully bat well, bowl well and field well (Talking about the plans for the next game vs Zimbabwe). That’s it. We’ll try and keep it simple, play the same brand of cricket which we want to play and nothing changes. I think we’ll come back strong.

Aiden Markram, South Africa (Winning captain)

Great performance. Very different type of wicket to what we’ve had here, so great to see the boys assess that pretty early and adapt their skills to execute their plans. We’re really pumped for the bowling group. They’ve been working hard, started the comp a bit tough, but the way they rocked up tonight was a great effort. I think first and foremost was the partnership. (Miller and Brevis) The guys were great, put that together for us, steadied the ship and kept us in the game. Conversations towards the back end were that the ball was travelling tonight, felt almost a bit spongy, so it was about finding space where we could run hard, drop the ego and take as much as we could at the back end. They bowled well up front and at the death as well, but I thought our batting through the middle was probably the difference. Good effort in the field. We put two down but not for lack of effort. Against UAE we probably weren’t as connected as we’d like, but that presence and connectedness was much better today. We’re going to make mistakes, we don’t mind that as a group, so we’ll brush those aside. We feel like Lungi is a threat whenever he bowls and that he can take wickets for us in that middle phase. It depends on conditions – if we don’t feel like it will do much with the new ball, we’d rather hold him back, but if there’s something in it he gets something out of the wicket. We’ll assess it on game days and give him that role. He’s happy to do anything, a proper team man, and he just keeps delivering. I think it’s the same for both teams having played each other recently (Talking about their next game vs West Indies). They’re a dangerous T20 side playing good cricket, so we’ll enjoy this tonight, park it, and get our minds sharp for that West Indies clash. It’s a big game for us and we don’t want to take confidence or good vibes for granted. Important to rock up on the 28th and take it on full steam ahead.