The third T20I game at Vishakhapatnam saw the Indian team break their losing streak against South Africa, as the men-in-blue registered a thumping 48-run win to stay alive in the series.
The foundation for the victory was laid down by the new-look Indian opening pair of Ishan Kishan and Ruturaj Gaikwad. The duo stitched a 97-run first wicket partnership, which allowed the rest of the batting lineup to build on a strong, competitive total.
Anrich Nortje’s bouncer floors Ruturaj Gaikwad but results in 4 runs
Gaikwad in particular, played out of his seemingly natural style of taking the game deep, and took charge against the fiery bowling of Anrich Nortje. The fourth over of India’s innings saw Gaikwad collect 20 runs off Nortje’s over. This 20-run blitz included Gaikwad scoring 4 crisp boundaries off his own bat, a dot ball; and a sharp back of the length delivery from Nortje that managed to completely outfox the batter and still ended up being a gratuitous boundary.
After having been hit for 2 back-to-back boundaries, Nortje lobbed a sharp, searing short-ball in Ruturaj’s direction. Ruturaj tried to play a cheeky upper-cut shot, but even before he could get into position, the ball stuck him on the grille and went flying past straight to the boundary. In the process, a delivery that should’ve fetched a wicket ended up being 4 bye runs. Here’s the video of the same:
https://twitter.com/SoniGup46462554/status/1536708210375430151?s=20&t=kErNtmjEdnv9PG-xtsyX7Q
Match Summary
Thanks to the openers’ efforts, alongside some good finishing from Hardik Pandya towards the end of the innings, India managed to post a more-than-competitive score of 179. In response to the chase, the South Africa batters tried hard to connect the ball, but they were completely undone by the magic of Yuzvendara Chahal (3/20) and Harshal Patel (4/25). Heinrich Klassen top-scored with 29, but by that time the game had already become a foregone conclusion.
Brief scores: India 179/5 (Ruturaj 57, Kishan 54, Harshal 4/25) beat South Africa 131 (Klassen 29, Hendricks 23, Pretorius 2/29) by 48 runs.