Uphill task for South Africa against rampant India

Centurion: The first Twenty20 International of the three-game series went the way the one-day internationals did, with India pulling off a 28-run win in Johannesburg.

South Africa have missed key players for a variety of reasons at different points of the limited-overs exchanges, and they have missed winning the key moments, part of the reason why they lost the ODIs 5-1 and are now 1-0 down in the T20Is.

There is a fair bit of inexperience in their ranks. Faf du Plessis and Quinton de Kock picked up injuries in the ODIs and then a host of regulars were rested for the T20Is because of the upcoming Test series against Australia.

Reeza Hendricks grabbed his chance at the top of the order in the first game with a 50-ball 70 in South Africa’s unsuccessful chase of 204, Farhaan Behardien chipped in with a 27-ball 39 during an 81-run stand with Hendricks, and Junior Dala and Tabraiz Shamsi both picked up wickets.

On otherhand, for India, Rohit Sharma did the early hitting for India, scoring 21 of the 23 runs in the first-wicket stand with Shikhar Dhawan. Dhawan then took over and batted till the 15th over, scoring 72 from 39 balls.

The remaining Indian batsmen also scored quickly and then, when South Africa were chasing a big target, Bhuvneshwar Kumar made sure there were no escape routes with returns of 5/24.

Teams from

South Africa: JP Duminy (Capt.), Farhaan Behardien, Junior Dala, Reeza Hendricks, Christiaan Jonker, Heinrich Klaasen (wk), David Miller, Chris Morris, Dane Paterson, Aaron Phangiso, Andile Phehlukwayo, Tabraiz Shamsi, JJ Smuts.

India: Virat Kohli (Capt.), Rohit Sharma, Jasprit Bumrah, Yuzvendra Chahal, Shikhar Dhawan, MS Dhoni (wk), Dinesh Karthik, Kuldeep Yadav, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Manish Pandey, Hardik Pandya, Axar Patel, KL Rahul, Suresh Raina, Shardul Thakur, Jaydev Unadkat.

Pitch and conditions
Thunderstorms have been predicted on the day before the game as well as on match day

Stats and trivia
18 runs needed by Virat Kohli to complete 2000 T20I runs.

Match facts
Wednesday 21 February 2018
Start time: 18:00 local (16:00 GMT)