 "IND vs SA, 4th T20 Stats: Tilak Verma and Sanju Samson set partnership record as Team India achieves sixes feat")
India smashed one record after another at the Wanderers Stadium in Johannesburg, thrashing South Africa by 135 runs on Friday to complete a 3-1 series victory in the process. Tilak Varma and Sanju Samson smashed whirlwind centuries, remaining unbeaten on 120 and 109 respectively and stitching together a mammoth 210-run partnership for the second wicket to help India post 283/1 after skipper Suryakumar Yadav won the toss for the first time in the tour and opted to field.
The Men in Blue were just as dominant with the ball in hand, bowling the Proteas out for a modest 135 to end their white-ball journey in 2024 with a lopsided win at the ‘Bullring’. The visitors had virtually killed off the contest inside the powerplay, reducing the Aiden Markram-led hosts to 10/4 with Arshdeep Singh (3/20) striking thrice in the first three overs, getting rid of Heinrich Klaasen for a golden duck.
There were quite a few records broken during the fourth and final T20I at the Wanderers, which we look at in greater detail below:
— India’s score of 283/1 is the second-highest total in a T20I involving Full Members. The Men in Blue had posted 297/6 against Bangladesh in Hyderabad last month which currently sits at the top spot in this list.
— The unbroken 210-run partnership between Varma and Samson is India’s highest for any wicket in T20Is, as well as the highest for the second wicket in the T20I format.
Impact Shorts
More Shorts— India struck 23 sixes in the fourth T20I against South Africa, the most in a T20I match involving Full Member nations. That’s one more than the total number of sixes that were hit in the India vs Bangladesh match in Hyderabad last month as well as South Africa vs West Indies in Centurion in 2023 and Afghanistan vs Ireland in Dehradun in 2019.
— Varma became only the fifth batter to post hundreds in consecutive innings in the T20I format. Samson had achieved it in Durban earlier in this series while France’s Gustav McKeon, South Africa’s Rilee Rossouw and England’s Phil Salt are the other batters to have achieved this feat.
— Friday’s match also witnesed the first instance of two batters scoring centuries in a Twenty20 International match between two Full Member nations.
— Sanju Samson became the first player in T20I history to score three centuries in a calendar year.
— Abhishek Sharma finished the year 2024 with a strike rate of 193.4, the highest among batters in the T20I format with 750 or more runs.
— The 135-run defeat against India in Johannesburg is South Africa’s biggest in the T20I format, surpassing the 111-run loss against Australia in Durban last year.
— The victory is also India’s third-biggest in the T20I format after their 168-run win against New Zealand in Ahmedabad (2023) and their 143-run win against Ireland in Dublin (2018).
— India’s victory in Johannesburg on Friday is their 18th against South Africa in T20Is, making them the most successful team against the Proteas in the shortest format.
— With their victory on Friday, India ended year with 24 wins in 26 T20Is, winning T20 World Cup in the US and the Caribbean along the way. Their only defeats in the format came against Zimbabwe (13 runs) in Harare in July and against South Africa (3 wickets) in Gqeberha on Sunday.
— With their victories in Centurion and Johannesburg, India have ensured they remain unbeaten in bilateral T20I series’ in South Africa (not including one-off fixtures).
— Varun Chakravarthy collected two wickets in Johannesburg to sign off with 12 wickets – the most by a bowler in a bilateral T20I series comprising four or fewer matches.
— South Africa captain Aiden Markram has now gone 28 T20I innings without a half-century, having last scored a fifty against India in Perth in the 2022 T20 World Cup.
— The 86-run partnership between Tristan Stubbs and David Miller is now South Africa’s highest for the fifth wicket in T20Is.
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