Dinesh Karthik once again impressed the cricket fans with his stupendous knock in the shortest format of the game. The veteran India batter on Sunday played a fiery knock against South Africa, scoring an unbeaten 30 off just 21 balls, with the help of 2 boundaries and as many maximums.
Karthik began a bit slow but he covered up with two gigantic hits off Dwaine Pretorius in the final over. He managed just 9 runs in the first 16 balls he played and then collected the remaining 21 in the just five deliveries.
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Tailender Harshal Patel, who scored an unbeaten 12 runs off 9 balls, gave him good company as the duo stitched 36 runs in the final three overs, helping India post 148 on the board after a middle-order collapse.
Have look at Karthik’s final-over heroics:
Last 5 balls faced by #DineshKarthik
4,4,6,6,1 pic.twitter.com/KpV0TfYDlY— Chaitanya ˢˢ ᵀʰᵃᵐᵃⁿ (@chaitutarak9999) June 12, 2022
Earlier, Indian batters found it tough to get going against some tight bowling display by South Africa to be restricted to a modest 148 for 6. Shreyas Iyer (40) was the top-scorer for India while Ishan Kishan provided some early sparks (21-ball 34) but the hosts lost the momentum in the middle overs under tough batting conditions.
Put into bat on a challenging track, the Indian batters struggled barring a small 45-run second-wicket partnership between Kishan and Shreyas Iyer. Kagiso Rabada set the tone early on, giving a breakthrough straightway in his first over.
He brilliantly set up Ruturaj Gaikwad (1) with a barrage of short balls before mixing up a fuller one to cleverly deceive the opener en route to a miserly spell of 4-0-15-1 that included 13 dot balls.
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After the sedate start, it was Kishan (34 from 21 balls) who provided the firepower in the power play, smashing Nortje for two sixes to improve their run rate. Fresh from his fiery fifty in the Kotla T20I, Kishan relied on his pick-up shots through the square leg region to hit three sixes and two fours.
But just when the duo looked to consolidate, Nortje won the battle against the diminutive Mumbai Indians opener, by pitching it short and offering pace as the lefthander mistimed his hook this time to be caught at deep square leg.
(With PTI Inputs)
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