South Africa vs India 2018, 2nd T20I: Hits and Misses

After winning the first T20I game of the three match series against South Africa at Johannesburg, India arrived at the SuperSport Park in Centurion aiming to clinch the series in style. With the D/L method aiding the team batting second, JP Duminy won the toss and elected to field first, keeping in mind the predictions of rain during the second half of the game.

India faced a rare top-order failure after Shikhar Dhawan, Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli were all dismissed early and just when one was wondering if the middle order could come to the party, Manish Pandey and MS Dhoni chipped in with unbeaten half-centuries to lead the team to a challenging target of 188 for 4 in their 20 overs.

However, some big-hitting by the Proteas and some inaccurate bowling by the Indians, South Africa romped home to an easy win, chasing down the target with six wickets and eight balls to spare.

Here are the hits and the misses from the game.

#1 MS Dhoni – Hit

India v Sri Lanka - ICC Champions Trophy

It is not easy being MS Dhoni in a country like India, where every failure is magnified and dissected for days on end. With the former skipper being in the news during the tour more for his pearls of advice that were caught on the stump mic than for his batting, the opportunity was ripe for Dhoni to come to the party after India’s top three had returned back to the hut early.

He came out to bat in the eleventh over of the innings, and as usual took time settling in. He broke the shackles with a powerful six against left-arm spinner Jon-Jon Smuts. Over the course of the innings, he was at his mightiest best – punishing the bowlers at will and punching the slower deliveries for maximums.

He put on a 98-run partnership with Pandey in 56 deliveries and Dhoni ended on 52 in 28, with four boundaries and three sixes – all scored at a strike-rate of 185.71.