The second T20I of the India-South Africa 3-match series went underway at Mohali, after the disappointing wash out of the first match at Dharamsala. Mohali crowd welcomed both the teams with cheers at the PCA IS Bindra Stadium.
South Africa gave T20I debuts to Temba Bavuma, Bjorn Fortuin, and Anrich Nortje. Kohli meanwhile opted to go into the game with as many as four all-rounders in the playing XI leaving out the likes of KL Rahul, Khaleel Ahmed, and Manish Pandey.
South Africa batted first after losing the toss and thanks to Quinton de Kock’s 52 and debutant Temba Bavuma’s 49 helped the team reach 149/5 after Saini was hit for two sixes by Phehlukwayo and Pretorius. It was thanks to some brilliant bowling by Deepak Chahar, who picked 2/22, while Saini, Jadeja, and Hardik picked one wicket each.
India got off to a good start with Rohit hitting Nortje for two sixes, but was dismissed by Phehlukwayo. Then Dhawan (40) and Kohli put on 61 runs for the 2nd wicket before Miller took a beauty of a catch to remove Dhawan. Rishabh Pant’s poor form of run continued as he fell to yet another soft dismissal for 4 runs.
Virat Kohli continued his merry way as he scored a brilliant 72* in 52 balls with 4 fours and 3 sixes and along with Shreyas Iyer's 11*, took India to a convincing win by 7 wickets, as India ended on 151/3 in 19 overs. For South Africa, Phehlukwayo, Shamsi and Fortuin were the wicket-takers.
Cricket fraternity was left in awe of the chase master Kohli, who shepherded the Indian team to a brilliant victory and took to Twitter to laud him.
Here are some of the tweets:
