Suryakumar Yadav smashed a fine half-century, making more than half of the team’s runs, to help India recover from 49/5 after a strong new ball performance from South Africa’s quick.
India got off to a rocky start after opting to bat first with the South Africa quicks enjoying the pace and bounce in Perth. While Rohit Sharma and KL Rahul pummelled a six apiece early on, Ngidi sent back Rohit with a short ball that hurried up the Indian skipper and found the top edge off the pull.
Rahul fell soon after, edging Ngidi to the slip cordon in the same over to depart for nine. Virat Kohli got into groove with a fine drive followed by a flick, both racing away for boundaries, but he fell on the pull too, top edging Lungi Ngidi to Rabada in the deep.
Kohli, though, completed 1000 runs in the T20 World Cup, becoming the first after Mahela Jayawardene and the first Indian to the milestone. But the milestone was overshadowed by stop India’s struggles against the searing pace of the South African quicks.
Deepak Hooda, who had come in for Axar Patel, fell to Anrich Nortje and India found themselves in a similar situation to that against Pakistan – at 42/4 in the 8th over. Hardik Pandya followed in the next over as they lost half the side with just 49 runs on the board.
Suryakumar Yadav led the recovery, establishing his authority over the bowlers in typical fashion. Even as the likes of Dinesh Karthik and Ravichandran Ashwin too time to settle down, Yadav continued at frenetic pace, leading India’s recovery and getting their total up to respectable levels.
He completed his ninth half-century of the year in this format to help India to 133/9 in 20 overs, falling only in the penultimate over of the innings after making a terrific 68 off just 40 balls.
Earlier, both teams made one change to their line-up from the previous game – India opting to replace Axar Patel with Deepak Hooda and South Africa bolstering their pace attack with Lungi Ngidi coming in for Tabraiz Shamsi.
South Africa: Quinton de Kock (wk), Temba Bavuma (c), Rilee Rossouw, Aiden Markram, David Miller, Tristan Stubbs, Wayne Parnell, Keshav Maharaj, Kagiso Rabada, Lungi Ngidi, Anrich Nortje
India: Rohit Sharma (c), KL Rahul, Virat Kohli, Suryakumar Yadav, Deepak Hooda, Hardik Pandya, Dinesh Karthik (wk), Ravichandran Ashwin, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Mohammed Shami, Arshdeep Singh
