The Indian openers initiated well as Ruturaj was in an attacking mode tonight, having considerably failed in the previous two games of this series.
Ruturaj smashed five consecutive boundaries in Anrich’s over during the power play and ultimately found his maiden fifty tonight.
Ishan Kishan assisted well and geared up after Ruturaj’s wicket fell. Ishan continued to fire throughout this series and found his second half-century in the 3T20I batted so far.
The middle order of team India was not able to take the advantage of quick start by the opening duo. Ishan and Rutu managed to stay for 97 runs and were close to scoring a century partnership but Keshav Maharaj gave the first breakthrough to the visitors.
Shreyas Iyer played a minimal role in today’s top order performance followed by the failure of middle-order tonight.
Skipper Rishabh Pant has failed miserably to perform in this series as the captain’s pressure might have diverted his focus to finish the innings in a positive aspect. Dinesh Karthik too failed tonight.
Hardik Pandya kept himself active till the end and managed to snatch away some crucial runs in the last over to score 179 runs.
South Africa managed to make a critical comeback after the young duo got out. South Africa needs 180 runs to secure the series tonight and with such great stats to win the last two T20Is against the host, will they dominate today too?
