T20I WC: South Africa beats India for 5 wickets

New Delhi: David Miller and Aiden Makram built a steady partnership as well as scored individuals fifties, leading South Africa (SA) to a 5 wicket victory against India at the Men's T20 World Cup 2022 here on Sunday, IANS reported.

Wining in the toss, India elected to bat first, which seemed as bad as it turned out. India lost their first five main wickets within the first nine overs. SA's Lungi Ngidi 'scored' in the said overs taking the priceless wickets of KL Rahul, Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli and Hardik Pandya. Three out of them were the dangerous batters in the last two matches where India won.

However, Suryakumar Yadav (Sky) did not forget what he was doing on the pitch and contributed to the team well. His 68 off 40 is what took India to a fair total of 133/9 since the pitch wasn't batter-friendly.

Chasing 134, SA actually had a bad start. After Bhuvaneshwar Kumar's tight first over, young swing bowler Arshdeep Singh took two wickets in the second over.

Later, SA skipper Temba Bavuma gave a wicket to Mohammed Shami in the final over of the powerplay. But India could not put pressure by taking wickets after David Miller and Aiden Makram joined bats in the fourth wicket. Miller (59 not out off 46 balls) and Markram (52 off 41 balls) took struggling SA from 24/3 with a 76-runs stand off 60 balls.

After the drinks break, Markram and Miller showed signs of changing gears as the duo took a four each off Pandya in a 16-run 11th over. Markram then danced down the pitch against Ravichandran Ashwin in the 12th over and smashed a four over the bowler's head.

Indian bowlers did well to choke the run rate, but the same wasn't enough. Men-in-blue committed mistakes in their fields, particularly Virat Kohli dropping a catch of Markram. Also, Markram got saved from a runout after skipper Rohit Sharma missed an easy through at the stumps.

Though Markram left in the 16th over, Miller did not hesitate to hit Ashwin over the fences twice in the 18th over. A straight loft down the ground was followed by smashing hard over wide long-off. Ashwin trapped Miller's co-batter Tristan Stubbs before wicket in the same over but couldn't make much difference.

First, 12 were needed in 12 balls, then 6 from 6 and SA sealed the match with 2 balls to spare.

Brief Scores: India 133/9 in 20 overs (Suryakumar Yadav 68; Lungi Ngidi 4/29, Wayne Parnell 3/15) lose to South Africa 137/5 in 19.4 overs (David Miller 59 not out, Aiden Markram 52; Arshdeep Singh 2/25, Mohammed Shami 1/13) by five wickets