Yet another failure for Rohit Sharma on this South Africa tour. India off to a horror start at the Supersport Park in Centurion.
South Africa got off to a sensational start in the second T20 against India on Wednesday.
Proteas skipper JP Duminy won the toss and had little hesitation in opting to field first at an overcast Supersport Park in Centurion. And his new ball bowlers delivered from the get go.
Chris Morris bowled an eventful first over, trapping Shikhar Dhawan in front on the very first ball of the match. Although the umpire raised his finger, the decision was overturned after Dhawan went for a review. Even so, Morris bowled a maiden over to give the hosts a great start.
It went from bad to worse in the second over for India. Rookie pacer Junior Dala delivered the perfect first ball to trap Rohit Sharma plumb in front. This time around, the Indians wisely chose to not take a review. Rohit, yet again, was on his bike without contributing to his team's cause.
Twitter was quick to roast the right-hander once again.
Here are some tweets
India soon found themselves in a deeper hole as Dhawan and skipper Virat Kohli perished too. Dhawan played some impressive strokes before falling to the gentle off-spin of Duminy.
South Africa then got the big fish as Dala picked up his second wicket in the form of Kohli. The Indian captain made the same mistake once again, poking at the ball half-heartedly and knicking it to the keeper.
For India, Right-arm fast bowler Shardul Thakur will make his T20I debut to replace Jasprit Bumrah in the Playing XI. Bumrah has been excluded in the decider T20I as he is suffering abdomen stiffness, skipper Virat Kohli explained.
South Africa, on the other hand, decided to field the same team which played the first T20I in Johannesburg.
India are currently leading the series 1-0 after a convincing 28-run win in the opening T20I and will aim to wrap-up the series here. Whereas, South Africa will look to bounce back to keep themselves alive in the series.
Meanwhile, Indian skipper Virat Kohli is on verge of breaking Viv Richards and Donald Bradman's record of most number of runs scored in a single tour.
In the ongoing tour of South Africa so far, Kohli has notched up 870 runs, including seven sixes and 91 boundaries, from 13 innings he played at an average of 87.00 and a strike rate of 82.38. The 29-year-old ended the ODI series against South Africa with 558 runs, becoming the first batsman ever to score 500 runs in a bilateral ODI series.
Kohli struck three centuries in the six-match series and is the only Indian to notch up three tons in a bilateral series. Kohli now needs to score just 175 more runs in the final two T20I matches to go past Richards' record. The West Indies legend had scored 1,045 runs in his side's tour to England in 1976.
Playing XIs
India: Rohit Sharma, Shikhar Dhawan, Virat Kohli (c), Ajinkya Rahane, MS Dhoni (wk), Shreyas Iyer, Hardik Pandya, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Kuldeep Yadav, Shardul Thakur, Yuzvendra Chahal.
South Africa: Hashim Amla, Aiden Markram (c), JP Duminy, Heinrich Klaasen (wk), David Miller, AB de Villiers, Chris Morris, Andile Phehlukwayo, Kagiso Rabada, Lungi Ngidi, Morne Morkel.
(Inputs from ANI)
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