India end South Africa tour on high by clinching T20 series

Indias team members celebrate a catch during their T20 cricket match against South Africa at Newlands Stadium in Cape Town PicAFPIndia brought curtains on a highly successful South Africa tour by clinching the Twenty20 series 21 with a comfortable sevenrun win in the deciding third match at Newlands here today Indias challenging tour had started at this very ground on January 5 and it culminated with a convincing win which came in the absence of skipper Virat Kohli who did not play todays match due to stiff back India got a flourishing start with Suresh Raina 43 off 27 clobbering South African bowlers but the hosts succeeded in straightjacketing the batsmen by taking the pace off the ball as visitors settled for 172 for sevenThe visitors choked South Africa with a remarkable disciplined bowling effort in Powerplay overs as they restricted the hosts to 165 for six to not only end the challenging tour on a high but also register maiden T20 series win on South African soil Home skipper JP Duminy 55 and debutant Christiaan Jonker 49 showed stomach for fight but their charge came too late India had recorded a dominating 51 win series win in the Onedayers and thus the team stamped its class in the whiteball cricket after losing the Test series 12Bhuvneshwar Kumar took 224 and was assisted by and Hardik Pandya 122 and Suresh Raina 127 This was after Shikhar Dhawan topscored with 47 off 40 balls and put on 65 runs for the second wicket with Raina to spearheaded the Indian innings But the visitors never really hit fifth gear and the innings was patchy throughout as compared to the previous two games Earlier put into bat for the third consecutive time in this T20Is series Rohit Sharma 11 was off the blocks quickly taking 13 runs off Chris Morris 243 first over Junior Dala 335 though got him out for the third time in three matches trapping Rohit lbw on the third ball of his first overThe batsman chose not to review even as the umpire did check for a no ball Raina though upped the tempo immediately after coming to the crease With a flurry of boundaries he and Dhawan took India to 571 in the first six overs and their 50partnership came off 37 balls South Africa changed their bowling around quite a bit and JP Duminy 022 bowled a tight first spell that dropped Indias runrate down to 85over before the halfstage of their inningsIt also didnt help that Raina holed out off Tabraiz Shamsi 131 and was caught at long on Dhawan wasnt timing the ball too well and couldnt make a tall score despite gaining two lives Shamsi had dropped him twice on nine in the sixth over off Morris at short third man and then at 34 in the 13th over off Aaron Phangiso 013 He helped India past 100 in the 12th over even as the runrate was maintained over 8 per over But now the visitors were looking to accelerate evident from Dhawans stroke play and Manish Pandeys 13 efforts The duo put on 32 runs for the third wicket before Pandey was caught in the deep off Dala in the 14th over It became a quick doubleblow as Dhawan too departed 12 balls later runout off Dala as he was involved in a mixup with Hardik Pandya 21 off 17 balls Pandya had been sent up to provide acceleration to the innings but it never really came as he and MS Dhoni 12 off 11 balls pushed the score past 150 in the 19th over But a flurry of wickets came late in the innings Dhoni Pandya and Dinesh Karthik 13 fell in the space of 8 balls as South Africa topped up a controlled display with the ball Chasing 173 for victory South Africa opted for a new ploy and sent David Miller 24 to open the inningsThey didnt get off to a great start though with inform Reeza Hendricks 7 skying a catch off Bhuvneshwar Kumar 224 Kumar and the returning Jasprit Bumrah 139 held things tight in their initial spells while even Shardul Thakur 135 kept control of the scoring rate So much so the Proteas only managed to score 25 for one in the first six overs It was all to do for them as Suresh Raina 127 came up to bowl Miller opened up as did Duminy at the other end as they added 35 runs for the second wicket but consumed 38 balls in doing so Raina picked up the wicket of Miller just before the halfway mark as the batsman was caught slogging in the deepThe big moment came when Hardik Pandya 122 dismissed Heinrick Klaasen 7 cheaply as Kumar took a sharp catch at midoff Duminy then took the onus on himself and started hitting out Axar Patel 016 was reserved for special attention and he proved expensive in the only over he bowled as Duminy scored his 11th T20I halfcentury off 38 balls Duminy and Jonker 49 off 24 balls added 39 runs for the fourth wicket before Thakuar snapped up the skipper to set the Proteas back further Bumrah bowled Chris Morris 4 to further hurt the chase But the debutant had other plans as he launched a measured attack on the Indian bowling With 53 needed off 18 balls he took 18 runs off Thakurs 18th over and then smacked Bumrah for another 16 in the penultimate over putting up 51 runs off just 22 balls with Ferhaan Behardien 15 not out The equation came down to 19 off the last over but Kumar held things tight and bowled India to a series winCatch up on all the latest sports news and updates here Also download the new midday Android and iOS apps to get latest updatesThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever