Twitter Reactions: South Africa thump India in Bengaluru to level the series
It was one of those off days for India.
South Africa have comfortably defeated India in the third and final T20 International at the Chinnaswamy stadium in Bengaluru. Their bowlers did exceptionally well to restrict the power-packed line-up of the hosts and then the Proteas openers did the bulk of scoring in the chase to script an easy victory. India once again failed to win a home T20I series against South Africa.
Virat Kohli opted to bat first in order to challenge his team keeping in mind the T20 World Cup in mind. But the step backfired completely as the Indian batsmen never looked comfortable in the middle. Rohit Sharma once again failed to get going while Virat Kohli too couldn’t replicate his show in Mohali. Shikhar Dhawan was impressive during his 36-run knock but he was bluffed by Tabraiz Shamsi.
India’s score read 63/1 in the 8th over before Dhawan got out and the middle-order crumbled completely as they couldn’t come to the terms with the pace of the surface. Rishabh Pant (19), Hardik Pandya (14) and Ravindra Jadeja (19) tried hard to get a move on but the South African bowlers were exceptional on the day. Beuran Hendricks was on top of his game as he extracted movement from the surface to trouble the batsmen.
Kagiso Rabada came back well in the final over to pick three wickets as India ended on a below-par score of 134/9 after 20 overs.
A stroll in the park for SA
India needed early wickets to have any chance of defending a small total. They started well too with Washington Sundar and Deepak Chahar keeping a lid on the run-scoring in the four overs conceding only 19 runs. But Quinton de Kock opened up in the next over and Reeza Hendricks also got his eye in as the opening pair prospered in the overs to come.
Both of them added 76 runs before Hardik Pandya struck off the very first delivery of his spell to send back Hendricks. But the wicket didn’t stop South Africa from getting the runs at pace. De Kock was set by then and crossed the 50-run mark soon. Temba Bavuma came out and played some crisp shots and in no time, the result of the match was out of the question.
De Kock literally threw his bat at everything and made sure that he stayed until the end in the middle as South Africa cantered to victory with nine wickets and more than three overs to spare. He remained unbeaten on 79 while Bavuma played second fiddle to end not-out on 27 as the visitors levelled the series comfortably.
Here’s how Twitter reacted:
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