‌SA vs IND | Twitter reacts to Varun’s fifer in vain as calm-headed Stubbs steer Proteas home 

Arijit Kundu

ByArijit Kundu, SportsCafe Editor

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South Africa beat India by three wickets and an over left to equalise the series 1-1. Varun Chakravarthy’s career-best fifer went in vain as the Indian pacers leaked 40 runs in the last three overs with Tristan Stubbs gleaming in a tricky run-chase before the attention switches to Centurion.

IND: 124/6 (20) [Hardik: 39*, Axar: 27; Markram: 1/4] lost to SA: 128/7 (19) [ Stubbs: 47*, Hendricks: 24; Varun: 5/17] by three wickets

Like the first T20I, the toss favoured South Africa at the same old St George’s Park, and the decision to field first worked wonders. Marco Jansen and Gerald Coetzee made the most out of the overhead conditions, removing the openers by the second over. Two overs later, Suryakumar Yadav perished leading to a 34-over powerplay. While Tilak Varma looked flawless in his twenty-run knock, a brilliant catch from David Miller sent him packing in the eighth over with the score 45/4. Axar Patel and Hardik Pandya added 25 runs together before the former left the field due to an unlucky runout in the 12th over followed by Rinku Singh in the 16th over. With the game sailing their way, three fours and a six reignited India’s score to 115/6 before a tremendous last couple of overs curbed the visitors to 124/6 in 20 overs. 

In response, South Africa got off to a decent start of 22 runs before Arshdeep Singh tasted success against Ryan Rickelton. Aiden Markram followed suit at the cusp of the 36-run powerplay with Varun Chakravarthy outwitting him. In his next over Reeza Hendricks found the stumps tumbled before Marco Jansen’s promotion in Tristan Stubbs’ presence added 20 runs to the partnership. Subsequently, Varun returned from the opposite end to knock off Jansen, Heinrich Klaasen, and David Miller in a space of nine deliveries to leave South Africa at 66/6. With 50 needed from the last four overs, Stubbs kept the scoreboard ticking despite the fall of Andile Simelane and switched gears against the pacers. Arshdeep and Avesh Khan leaked 12 runs each in the 17th and 18th over to curtail the equation to 13 needed off needed. Stubbs didn’t wait for the last over and smoked Arshdeep for four boundaries in the penultimate over to finish the chase with an over left.

Sensational

Braindead

True

He was too good

Just 9 runs

Why?

Script changes

Finally

Clarity is important

Level

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