India finish tour with T20I series win
Saif Ahmed ChowdhuryCorrespondent
Posted - 2018-02-25T01:35:25+06:00
Updated - 2018-02-25T01:43:00+06:00
The series between
and
ended exactly like it began, in a thrilling fashion. After losing the Test series, India didn't look back and kept winning and winning. After winning the ODI series 5-1, India have now won the series decider to clinch the T20I series 2-1.
In the series decider, South Africa elected to bowl first and opener
's poor run in the T20I series continued as he departed for just 11 runs. But on the other hand, his partner Shikhar Dhawan (47) played a decent innings once again.
The T20I specialist Suresh Raina who made a comeback in the team after a long time was the man of the day for India and played a blistering knock of 43 runs off just 27 balls. The men in blue scored a handy score of 172 runs in the end in their 20 overs.
Junior Dala was once again successful for South Africa as he picked up 3 wickets while Chris Morris picking up two.
In reply, South Africa lost Reeza Hendricks early and after that the required run rate kept climbing and the skipper JP Duminy wasn't able to do anything and so as David Miller. But before departing for 55 runs, Duminy hit some huge blows to give some hopes to Proteas in their run chase.
When it was looking like its almost all over for South Africa as they needed 53 runs in the last three overs, the game started to turn around courtesy of Christiaan Jonker's blinder of a knock. Including 5 fours and 2 sixes, Jonker scored 49 runs off just 29 balls.
But it still wasn't enough for South Africa to chase down the total and they felt short off 7 runs in the end as
successfully defended 19 runs for India in the last over to end the tour with the T20I trophy.
Brief score
:
IND 172/7 (20 ov) | Dhawan 47, Raina 43 | Dala 3/35
SA 165/6 (20 ov) | Duminy 55, Jonker 49 | B Kumar 2/24
Result
: India won by 7 runs