New Delhi: With several rain-hit games and abandonment affecting the business end of the Men’s T20 World Cup, India’s encounter against South Africa at the Perth Stadium on Sunday evening is likely to have significant implications for the rest of their Super 12 group. Was. The match itself was another final over, but as India lost, South Africa chased down India’s modest target of 134 by 5 wickets with 2 balls to spare.
The win takes South Africa to the top of their Super 12 group, with the Proteas collecting 5 points from their 3 matches so far. Wherein India slipped to second place with 4 points. Both teams stand as favorites to qualify for the semi-finals, with South Africa facing Pakistan and the Netherlands in their remaining games while India take on Bangladesh and Zimbabwe.
ThePrint takes a look at some of the key points in India’s defeat in Perth.
1. The magic of Lungi Ngidi’s dreams shook India
The Men in Blue got off to a steady start in the powerplays, with Perth’s fast pace and danger of bounce and the similarity of South African pitches evident from previous matches in this tournament. Openers Rohit Sharma and KL Rahul both went off the mark with sixes, but struggled to rotate the strike for the most part and fell to Lungi Ngidi in the same over. The South African seamer does not bowl as fast as his teammates Kagiso Rabada and Enrique Nortje and is more known for his slower deliveries and cutters in this format. However, he pitched more than his teammates and regularly threatened India’s top order during and after the powerplays. While his economy rate was hurt by Suryakumar Yadav’s few late hits, his repeated short-ball effective results, ousting both Virat Kohli and Hardik Pandya, earned his spell as a T20 World Cup classic. expressed.
2. Wayne Parnell holds it tight and locks it
While Ngidi was the star of the show, the foundation to restrict India to a modest target was laid by his fellow members of South Africa’s fearsome pace quartet, most notably Wayne Parnell. Handed over with the new ball, Parnell made his signing in these helpful conditions. He repeatedly figured out the ideal hard length to prevent Indian batsmen from finding easy scoring options, and his left-arm pace meant he could get the right amount of swing, angle and movement off the pitch. With Rohit and Rahul already struggling for form on the Australian pitches, it was the perfect storm for Parnell to open the proceedings with a maiden and also smother Suryakumar to death.
3. The Brave of Sky Accuses His Comrades
For the second match in a row but in completely different conditions, Suryakumar Yadav has proved to be the ideal T20 batsman, both on nature and technical level. The Mumbai-born middle-order batsman not only saved the Indian innings from a complete collapse by trying to build partnerships, but he also counter-attacked early in his innings, choosing the right moments to take risks. Once again, he showed why he is known as a 360-degree player, with excellent wrist work, footwork and finding gaps in South Africa’s field placements. But the fact that he did so almost without assistance from the rest of the Indian batting lineup is an indictment of his technical faults and ability to withstand high-speed and bouncy bowling in countries like Australia. The closest element they had to the partnership was Dinesh Karthik’s stunning innings, during which Sky did all the heavy lifting.
4. India’s gamble reversed to play with a lesser all-rounder!
India took a big gamble by tinkering with their winning side – left-arm spinner Axar Patel lost his place to middle-order hitter Deepak Hooda, helping to add some batting depth to the pitch that aided spin. Didn’t While this made sense on paper to an extent, it actually backfired as Hooda was picked for his maiden T20 World Cup game on a bouncy pitch in Australia against one of the best bowling attacks in the world. And it backfired just three balls into Hooda’s innings, as he was caught behind fishing on a wide delivery, after which he had no job, given his lack of footwork. Also, choosing a lesser bowler meant R Ashwin had to give up his full quota of overs, even when Aiden Markram and David Miller wanted to target India’s fast bowlers for pressure-relieving boundaries . The final two overs of Ashwin’s spell, in which he dismissed Tristan Stubbs but hit several sixes to Markram and Miller, summed up the tactical problem for India.
5. India pays the ultimate price for terrible fielding
But Ashwin’s disastrous final over, and the color of the second innings, could have been completely different had Virat Kohli caught a regulation catch to dismiss Markram or was easily run out by Rohit Sharma. Instead, India’s fielding came down heavily in crucial moments, much to Ashwin’s agony when Kohli juggled and eventually dropped the catch. Markram was on 36 at the time and scored 52 runs in partnership with David Miller, who scored 37 more runs after the drop, and the rest was history, marked by “Protea Fire”.
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