India Humiliated South Africa in an one sided T20i match in Durban, India won by 61 runs in the first T20i and takes 1-0 lead in the 4 match T20i Series. A complete dominating performance from the Indian team with both bat and ball. Indian spinners were looking like they were on a mission to destroy South Africa's batting line-up, in batting Sanju had some great time in the middle. Let's start from the beginning.
PITCH REPORT & TOSS: Durban’s Kingsmead Cricket Ground typically favours fast bowlers, with an average first-innings score of just 136 across 18 T20Is. Out of those 18, 1 match yielded no results, and another (between India and Pakistan) ended in a tie. It was a hard pitch and allowed extra bounce for the pacers. The soon as I saw the pitch, I hoped India to bat first. Yeah, it was slightly overcast at the start of the game but still Sa would have batted first after winning the toss. Surya was more than happy for batting first. "For the rest of the 16 matches, 8 matches were won by teams batting first and 8 by teams batting second. Captains winning the toss often choose to bat first due to the stadium’s playing conditions." This was published in the mint before the start of the match. (Read the full article here)
Overall it was bad captaincy from Markram, you chose to ball first because of the overseas condition but the 2nd and 3rd over was bowled by spinners. Marco bowled a great first over by giving just 2 runs against the Indian Openers. You should have given the ball to Coetzee or Simelane early on.
SANJU'S MASTERCLASS: Sanju has shown some potential lately as an opener. He becomes the first Indian to score 2 consecutive T20i 100. I expected him to perform well in South African pitches as he trusts the bounce while playing his shots and never misses out on playing the on the up shots early on in his innings. He hit in total 10 sixes in his innings of 107 runs of 50 balls, the funny part is whole South African team managed to hit only 9 sixes. Sanju's is like tutorial on how to play your shots on South African pitches.
It is crucial for Abhishek now to score some runs, to make his place in the team. He plays every shot like he is batting on Indian pitches. I have made a short comparison video of Sanju and Abhishek have a look.
With the help of short cameos of Surya and Tilak, India manages to score 202 of their 20 overs with loss of 8 wickets.
SOUTH AFRICA BATTING: South Africa struggled to score runs from the 1st over itself. Wickets kept falling at regular intervals. But Indian spinners are the one who made the difference, Indian Spinners took 6 wickets in total with an economy rate of just 6.78. Whereas, if you look at South Africa's spinners, they managed to clinch only 2 wickets and the economy rate was 9.88. Varun and Bishnoi were amazing yesterday, they took 3 wickets each. Varun took the main wickets of Klassen and Miller. He was looking in his old touch and bowled some great deliveries.
India managed to all out SA for just 141 runs, and secured stunning victory against SA to start the series. Indian bowlers didn't give any chance for the batters to attack, especially in the middle overs. Keeping Miller and Klassen silent for so long is not easy, Overall it was a complete team performance by the Indian team. Durban is anyways considered as lucky for us, we haven't lost a single match in this venue.
We have started the series on a good note and hope we will continue this form in the later half of the series, no need of doing anything extra just focus on individual performance. I guess we need only one change that is replace Avesh with Dayal or Ramandeep (batting depth). The next match is scheduled tomorrow in the St George's Oval stadium, hoping for the same results.
The pitch of St George's Oval has historically Supported pacers, who would get a good bounce from the surface. The batters can get going once they hold off the new-ball pressure. Spinners get little to no help from the surface. They would have to be on the money with their line and length to have any success. This is the pitch report for the tomorrow's match, I would prefer chasing on this pitch. The last time we played on this venue we lost by 5 wickets via DLS method. The highest score on this pitch is 179 by India. Expecting a similar low scoring pitch again. Hardik along with Surya and Arshdeep will shine in the 2nd T20i is what I am predicting.
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