 "Indian leg-spinner Varun Chakravarthy registered his maiden international five-wicket haul and only his second in the T20 format with his haul of 5/17 against South Africa in Gqeberha. AP")
South Africa bounced back from the 61-run thrashing at the hands of India in Durban with a thrilling victory in Gqeberha on Sunday, leveling the four-match T20I series against India 1-1 with two games to go. Tristan Stubbs steered the Proteas to victory from a difficult position with an unbeaten 47 off 41 deliveries that earned him the Player of the Match award after a disciplined effort from from the bowling unit helped restrict the Suryakumar Yadav-led visiting team to a most 124/6 – a long way off from the 202 that they had posted at the Kingsmead in the tour opener.
As It Happened | South Africa defeat India by 3 wickets in 2nd T20I in Gqeberha, level series 1-1
Varun Chakravarthy, continued to dazzle for the Men in Blue and nearly helped them go 2-0 up at St George’s Park despite their modest total as the leg-spinner followed up his haul of 3/25 in Durban with outstanding figures of 5/17 on Sunday.
With the second of four T20Is coming to an end, we take a look at whether there were any records broken during the course of the match in Gqeberha and whether the players reached any individual milestones along the way:
— Chakravarthy registered his maiden international five-for with his figures of 5/17, bettering his haul in Durban. It also happens to be the joint-second-best T20I bowling figures by an Indian spinner after Yuzvendra Chahal’s 6/25 against England in Bengaluru in 2017. Kuldeep Yadav had also collected 5/17 against South Africa in South Africa in December last year, albeit in Johannesburg. It’s also the joint-second-best T20I figures against South Africa after Umar Gul’s 5/6.
Impact Shorts
More Shorts— The three-wicket loss in Gqeberha on Sunday is only the second for India this year in the shortest format. Since the shock 13-run loss to Zimbabwe in Harare, India had won 11 matches in a row including the Super Over win against Sri Lanka in Palleleke. India had previously won 12 games in a row from November 2021 to February 2022, all of them ending in outright wins and not going into a Super Over.
— Arshdeep Singh equalled Jasprit Bumrah’s tally of 89 T20I wickets after dismissing South African opener Ryan Rickelton in Gqeberha on Sunday. While Bumrah remains third on the list of leading Indian wicket-takers in the shortest format due to his superior average and economy, Arshdeep has gone level with the leader of the Indian attack despite having played 12 games fewer and having made his debut in 2022, a good six years after Bumrah. Chahal remains India’s leading wicket-taker with 96 wickets with Bhuvneshwar Kumar second on the list with 90.