Cricket News: The highest score by a side batting first in T20I cricket at the Arun Jaitley Stadium is 212 runs, and it is only the venue’s second 200-plus total. Despite South Africa’s cat-and-mouse game with the required rate, India stayed in command, with Rassie van der Dussen battling at one end and David Miller trying to keep the innings under control at the other. But all it took was one lost catch opportunity for South Africa to reverse the game’s momentum, as the visitors won by seven wickets in the series opener in New Delhi.
South Africa was 86 for three in the 10th over of the chase, with Rassie battling at 15 off 16. David Miller had just gone in and was on the 4th floor of the building. It was in 2010 when a team chased 125 runs or more in the final 10 overs of an innings. The guests were up against huge odds.
“When David came in,” van der Dussen revealed after the game, “I said to him, ‘You can play it as you see it but I’m pretty happy to take between 12 and 13 an over in the last ten.’ Because if you were in on this wicket, you could really capitalise. So we didn’t panic at all. We knew even if the asking rate got up to 14-15, we could use that one short boundary with the right-left combination. We knew we could target the bowlers.”
Miller nailed the strategy, taking on Harshal Patel and then Axar Patel for a flurry of boundaries. Miller hit the half-century mark in 22 balls, but Rassie continued to score at a run-a-ball clip, scoring 29 off 30 balls. When he finally got free, he smacked Shreyas Iyer at deep mid-wicket for a six. Despite the fact that it was a legal catch, Iyer dropped it.
“When Shreyas dropped it, I knew I had to make them pay because I took the balls to get myself in,” Rassie said.
And, unfortunately for India, the game had altered completely. South Africa took a 1-0 lead in the five-match series after Rassie hit 45 runs off the following 15 balls to complete the chase in 19.5 overs.
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