Indian spinner Varun Chakravarthy picked up a five-wicket haul for the first-time in his T20I career, to bring India back into the game while defending just 124-run total against South Africa at the St George’s Park in Gqeberha. Out of the five dismissals during his exceptional bowling spell in the second T20I, four of the South African batters lost their stumps to the accurate lines and lengths from Varun Chakravarthy, which silenced the home crowd.
After the South African bowlers restricted India to just 124/6 in their allotted overs, with Hardik Pandya (39* off 45) top-scoring, Arshdeep Singh picked the key wicket of Ryan Rickelton in the power play stage. Following that, it was the Varun Chakravarthy show as far as the Indian bowling was concerned as he first cleaned-up Protea captain Aiden Markram for yet another low score.
Reeza Hendricks looked quite dangerous during his 24 off 21, which included three fours and one maximum before the Indian spinner shattered his stumps with a googly. The next to go off the bowling of Varun Chakravarhty was Marco Jansen before he took the massive wickets of Heinrich Klaasen and David Miller at the start of the 13th over, to suddenly put India in a good position with South Africa needing 59 runs in 47 balls with only five wickets in hand.
Check out the playing XIs of India and South Africa for the second T20I at the St George’s Park in Gqeberha:
India: Sanju Samson (wk), Abhishek Sharma, Suryakumar Yadav (c), Tilak Varma, Hardik Pandya, Rinku Singh, Axar Patel, Arshdeep Singh, Ravi Bishnoi, Avesh Khan, Varun Chakravarthy
South Africa: Ryan Rickelton, Reeza Hendricks, Aiden Markram (c), Tristan Stubbs, Heinrich Klaasen (wk), David Miller, Marco Jansen, Andile Simelane, Gerald Coetzee, Keshav Maharaj, Nqabayomzi Peter