Ken Borland

David Miller in demolition mode and Rassie van der Dussen, slowly building his innings to a crescendo, combined to lift South Africa to an extraordinary seven-wicket victory in the first T20 against India in Delhi on Thursday.

Chasing India’s record score of 211/4, Miller continued to grow his reputation as one of the best finishers in world cricket as he battered 64 not out off 31 balls, steering South Africa’s highest ever T20 chase.

But Van der Dussen had taken 31 balls to reach 30 and with South Africa needing 120 from the last nine overs, the pressure just seemed to be mounting inexorably on the Proteas.

But Van der Dussen showed great composure to put aside his earlier struggles, hitting three sixes and a four off Harshal Patel in the 17^th over and hammering 45 off his last 15 balls to finish with a powerful 75 not out off 46 balls.

That left South Africa needing 34 off the last three overs to win and the boundaries continued to flow as the Proteas won with five balls to spare, the experienced pair of Miller and Van der Dussen adding 131 off 63 balls.

Dwaine Pretorius had earlier struck a fiery 29 off 13 balls as he was elevated to No.3 in the order and ensured the Proteas made a brisk start in the powerplay, reaching 60/1 in the first five overs.

On a small field which took South Africa’s ace spinners, Keshav Maharaj and Tabraiz Shamsi out the game – they conceded 70 runs in five overs – India were put on course for a big score by openers Ruturaj Gaikwad (23) and Ishan Kishan after being sent in to bat.

They added 57 in 6.2 overs and even after Kishan was dismissed for a hard-hitting 76 off 48 balls, India ploughed on through Shreyas Iyer (36 off 27) and Rishabh Pant (29 off 16).

Hardik Pandya then put the cherry on top with a blazing 31 not out off just 12 deliveries.

Wayne Parnell, on his return to the T20 side for the first time since 2017 due to Aiden Markram withdrawing with Covid, was the best of the bowlers with 1/32 in his four overs.

Kagiso Rabada was unfortunate to end his four-over stint without a wicket and conceding 35 runs.

Proteas coach Mark Boucher has acknowledged that the strains of bubble life and the worries of seeing civil unrest back at home have been consumers of energy for his team, but he implored them to make one last push for the final three days of cricket they have in Ireland, starting with the first T20 in Dublin on Monday.

It has generally been a very successful tour of the West Indies and Ireland, with all the series won except for the ODIs against Ireland, which South Africa were forced to share after the first match was rained out and their shock defeat in the second game.

But that historic 43-run loss came at the height of the riots back in South Africa and Boucher said his team had struggled for focus on that day.

“We just weren’t there the other day, the awareness and intensity were way down. But we can’t afford to make excuses, we need to be up for every game. What’s happening back at home is affecting us, and every South African. A lot of adrenaline and energy has gone into chats about it, and that equated to low energy on the field. Plus we’ve been one-and-a-half months on tour.

“We’ve talked a lot to get the emotions out and some of the players have families that have been personally affected, so they feel quite emotionally drained. But we have three days of cricket left and we showed in the last ODI what we can do when we play with good energy. But Ireland will certainly be no walkovers and we found out in the second ODI what happens if we don’t rock up for the T20s,” Boucher said.

With the IPL carnival set to scupper South Africa’s hopes of playing a T20 series against India, the Proteas have these three T20s in the coming week and three more in Sri Lanka to prepare for when the global T20 pageant is held in the United Arab Emirates from October. Assistant coach Enoch Nkwe stressed on Sunday that they now need stable plans.

“We’re not yet where we are supposed to be at, but we will be making sure we give ourselves the best chance of mastering the processes we have in place. We would like to see different personnel in different roles to see how they respond, so those opportunities will be created. We need to look outside the frontline players to see if they can do the job.

“The players need to trust the formula we are working on, no matter the conditions. We only have six games left before the World Cup but we believe we’re on track. We need confidence in our death bowling, where we have clear plans that the bowlers just need to commit to 100%, and we need to get our top-order as stable as possible as soon as possible,” Nkwe said.

There were many blemishes in the Proteas finishing game with both bat and ball in the first T20 against Pakistan at the Wanderers on Saturday, with captain Heinrich Klaasen admitting one of the black marks goes against his name for getting out when he did when South Africa were batting.

Klaasen scored an explosive 50 off 28 balls, producing some great six-hitting, but he was caught at short fine leg trying to scoop Hasan Ali, with the Proteas on 159 for three after 16.2 overs. They ended on 188 for six, a decent total but well short of what looked likely when they already had 151 on the board after 15 overs.

Pakistan won the match by four wickets with a ball to spare as South Africa again failed to execute their skills in the last five overs, conceding 60 runs, as well as missing a couple of catches. Opener Mohammad Rizwan steered the visitors home with his clinical 74 not out off 50 balls.

“We were in a very good position to take the game away from Pakistan, but unfortunately I got out at a bad time. The job of the set batsman is to go deep but unfortunately I couldn’t do that. It was not all bad execution in the end stages, just one or two overs and we had a bit of bad luck too. But we still need to fine-tune that area of our game.

“We may be forced to experiment with players, but the game plan is set and we need to do that going forward to the World Cup. Now we just need to execute it and fine-tune it. Things like the angles we bowled to Rizwan, we need to stay out of his hitting zone, he scored a lot on the leg side. Sisanda Magala and Lizaad Williams are probably our two best yorker bowlers so we needed to stick to that plan,” Klaasen said after the match.

One positive from the match was Aiden Markram reaching a white-ball international half-century for the first time since March 2019. The elegant opener top-scored for the Proteas with 51 and he did not eat up too many balls getting there either – he only needed 32 deliveries.

“I’m really happy for Aiden, he’s fought hard to get back in the white-ball sides and today he really made a statement, he showed that he can play in this format. In the ODIs he just needs to not get out when he is set, but today’s knock was a big step in the right direction,” Klaasen said.

Not making use of the facilities at your disposal is one of the serious crimes of the sporting world, and Proteas captain Heinrich Klaasen said his team wasting a handful of their 20 overs cost them the match in the first T20 against Pakistan and is what they have to put right in the games on Saturday and Sunday in Lahore if they are to win the series.

South Africa fell three runs short in the first T20 in a gutsy effort, but they would have expected to chase down 170 on a good pitch for batting. But having been 51 without loss after the six powerplay overs, the Proteas then lost their way, but the next six overs saw them slip to 83 for three, leaving them to score 87 runs off 48 balls. Which was too steep a task.

“I thought that Pakistan were 10 runs short and I was very happy with our effort in the field and to be chasing 170. But it was just four or five overs in the middle where we made life very difficult for ourselves. Usman Qadir bowled two overs and had two for four in that middle phase and that put us on the back foot in the middle overs.

“Hopefully we can lift our intensity in that middle phase and then we’ll get over the line. Our standards are high, we don’t like losing although we played a good game of cricket. One or two bowling things didn’t go to plan, we need to reassess one or two overs, but I was generally very pleased with how the bowling went, and I was quite pleased with the fielding, but not the two dropped catches at the end,” Klaasen said after his first match as Proteas captain.

Among the positives in the batting was that Janneman Malan and Reeza Hendricks came off as an opening pair. Malan blazed his way to 44 off 29 balls before becoming Qadir’s first victim as he was made to look silly by a superb delivery, while Hendricks batted as the anchor and made it through to the 18^th over, scoring 54 off 42 balls. Some critics have described Hendricks’ innings as being too slow, but with wickets tumbling at the other end he obviously saw his role as being to bat for as long as possible until someone could form another partnership with him.

“I was very happy with the start and Reeza only faced 12 balls in the first seven overs, so Janneman was always going to score more quickly. Unfortunately Janneman got out when we could have completely taken the powerplay away from them, then we lost the game between overs seven and 10. We didn’t do too badly tonight, but we just slipped up in the crucial moments.

“But that’s part of the learning process and the key this weekend is to be patient and take control of those moments. Hopefully the new guys will use the opportunity to showcase their skills, we need to be adaptable and we will chop and change a few things,” Klaasen said.