No doubt, Sanju Samson hit back-to-back centuries in his last two T-20 games against Bangladesh & South Africa in their first encounter at Durban. Of course, every fan of Samson was hoping for a hat-trick. Alas, he just seemed to be overconfident to give ample space to heave Jansen over mid-off, but paid a heavy price by exposing his stumps to get bowled for a duck.
Similar was the case with Abhishek Sharma, who is on a lean patch since his century against Zimbabwe. Unfortunately, even our Captain SKY is going through a lean patch to put our team in jeopardy.
Thanks to Axer Patel and Hardik Pandya, who scored to reach a reasonable score of 124. But we feel we were short by at least 20 runs, mainly due to the no confidence of Hardik Pandya to take singles and give the strike to Arshdeep, who tanked a six. Out of last 5 overs, he allowed 19 dots, which proved to be costly. Anyway glad that our bowlers, especially Varun Chakravarthy, put our team with a chance to win with his 5 for 17 in 4 overs.
But as usual, our death over bowlers leaked nearly 40 runs in two overs to lose the tie and make it one all in the 4 match series. Well, nothing is lost till now. Our team should be confident and not get complacent with their host, South Africa, who too are not choking now.
Vinay Mahadevan,
Chennai, India
