India’s young batting sensation Abhishek Sharma silenced his critics with a quick-fire half century. The 24-year-old had been struggling to score runs for India in the last few games. Abhishek Sharma’s only big score was his century during the second T20I match against Zimbabwe few months ago.
Andile Simelane was bowling the 5th over with Abhishek Sharma on strike. The South African bowler pitched it short to Sharma who pulled the ball deep into the stands. India’s left-handed opening batter deposited the ball deep into the fine leg region.
In the very next ball, Sharma made his way down the track as he gave himself room. The ball was smashed way into the stands over the extra cover boundary. Those two shots also meant that India had got a brisk start to the innings. South African bowlers were left clueless as Tilak Varma also kept the pressure going from the other end.
South African bowlers fightback after India’s blazing start
India lost their first wicket of the game in the second ball of the match. Sanju Samson was out for his second successive duck. Marco Jansen who had dismissed Samson in Gqeberha yet again went past the defences of India’s wicketkeeper batter.
Tilak Varma came out to bat at number three as Suryakumar Yadav pushed himself to number four. The left-handed batting duo were aggressive right from the start as they added 107 runs for the second wicket. That stand came off 50 balls as Aiden Markram began to look worried.
Abhishek Sharma reached his fifty with a single just a ball after hitting Keshav Maharaj. South Africa’s wily spinner had the last laugh as he had Sharma stumped by Klaasen for 50 off 25 balls with three fours and 5 huge sixes.
Suryakumar Yadav continued his bad form with the bat as he holed out a catch to Marco Jansen for just 1 run.
This was the second time in two games that Andile Simelane had got rid of India’s T20I skipper. Hardik Pandya scored 18 runs with the help of three fours from 16 balls before he was out LBW to Maharaj. At the time of writing, India were placed at 138/4 from 14 overs with Tilak Varma on 55 and Rinku Singh on 1.
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