Hardik, Tilak blaze India to dominance in T20 finale

An incredible display of power hitting from Hardik Pandya, backed up by some entertaining hitting from Tilak Varma, powered India to 231/5 in their 20 overs of the final T20 International against the Proteas at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad on Friday afternoon.

Pandya plundered five sixes and five fours, on his way to an amazing 25-ball 63, while Varma was impressive, crunching 10 fours and a six in his 42-ball 73, and they shared in a superb 105-run partnership off just 44 balls.

The Proteas now have a monster target to chase down to try and draw the series, while India will be confident of securing a series win.

At the start of play the Proteas won the toss and chose to bowl, but India’s innings got off to a terrific start thanks to openers Sanju Samson, 37 off 22 (4x4; 2x6) and Abhishek Sharma, 34 off 21 (6x4; 1x6), as they crashed 63 runs within the powerplay, with them tucking into Marco Jansen and Ottneil Baartman.

Corbin Bosch finally made the breakthrough in the sixth over, after Sharma feathered an edge behind to keeper Quinton de Kock.

But that just brought Varma in and they continued on, adding a quickfire 34 to the score, before George Linde struck in the 10th over, bowling Samson, followed by India reaching 101/2 at the halfway stage.

Some tight bowling from Linde and Donovan Ferreira then pulled things back a little, and when Bosch had Suryakumar Yadav (5) caught by David Miller at mid-off, with the score 115/3 at the start of the 13th over, the Proteas were in a decent spot.

But Pandya crunched a six off his first ball and a four off his third, to signal his intent, and that set India off as they hammered 116 runs off the last eight overs of the innings.

Both batters then fell in an entertaining final over that went for 17 runs, but also saw two wickets as the hosts set the visitors a huge target to chase.

Lungi Ngidi was the pick of the bowlers and the only one to go for under 10 runs an over, with him ending with figures of 0/29 from his four overs, while Bosch, 2/44 in four, Linde, 1/49 in four, and Baartman, 1/39 in three were all expensive.

INDIA: Sanju Samson, Abhishek Sharma, Suryakumar Yadav (capt), Tilak Varma, Hardik Pandya, Shivam Dube, Jitesh Sharma (wk), Washington Sundar, Varun Chakravarthy, Arshdeep Singh, Jasprit Bumrah

SOUTH AFRICA: Reeza Hendricks, Quinton de Kock (wk), Aiden Markram (capt), Dewald Brevis, David Miller, Donovan Ferreira, George Linde, Marco Jansen, Corbin Bosch, Lungi Ngidi, Ottneil Baartman