Leg-spinner Varun Chakravarthy bowled a brilliant five-wicket spell to put India within sight of victory in the second T20I against South Africa on Sunday, but an error of judgement by captain Suryakumar Yadav cost the visitors dear — according to former Pakistan batsman Basit Ali.
India could muster only 124 for 7 after a top-order failure, with first-match centurion Sanju Samson falling for a duck and his opening partner Abhishek Sharma scored 4. India’s No. 3, captain Surya, also failed to impress — dismissed for 4.
But India’s middle-order showed some fight. Tilak Varma (20 off 20 balls), Axar Patel (27 off 21) and Hardik Pandya (39 not out off 45) contributed to push India past the 120-run mark.
India then reduced their hosts to 86 for 7, thanks to Chakravarthy’s spell of 5 for 17. Surya then brought in his pace bowlers, while Patel had three more overs up his sleeve.
Patel gave away just two runs in the one over he bowled with his left-arm spin, but was not used any further.
That, believes Basit, is where Surya made an error.
“Axar Patel bowled one over, in which he gave away just two runs. Suryakumar Yadav didn’t ask him to bowl again. I was really surprised. They (South Africa) won with just one over to spare. Axar should have been bowled when Surya brought Pandya back. He bowled three wide balls and the momentum shifted,” said Basit on his YouTube channel.
“Aisa lag raha tha India yeh match nahi harega (it seemed India won’t lose the match)…Bad captaincy by Suryakumar Yadav. (It appeared) He didn’t know that the South African batsmen were facing problems in playing the spinners, and he didn’t ask Axar to bowl. He bowled Avesh Khan who was hit for two fours,” Basit analysed.
“After 124, the spell that Varun Chakravarthy bowled, Suryakumar Yadav’s captaincy let it go to waste.”
From 86 for 7, ‘Player of the Match’ Tristan Stubbs (47 not out off 41 balls) and Gerald Coetzee (19 not out off 9) took their team home to level the four-match series at 1-1.