IND VS SA T20I: South Africa beat India by 4 wickets, take 2-0 lead

IND VS SA T20I: South Africa beat India by 4 wickets, take 2-0 lead

IND VS SA T20I: South Africa beat India by 4 wickets, take 2-0 lead

Cuttack : Comeback man Heinrich Klaasen turned out to be an unlikely hero with a career-best 81 as South Africa once again outwitted India by four wickets on a tricky pitch to take a 2-0 lead in the five-match T20I series here today.

On a two-paced track where most of the batters struggled, Klaasen made it look easy as he smashed seven fours and five towering sixes in his 46-ball knock to help his team knock off a target of 149 with 10 balls to spare.

The wicketkeeper-batter, who was included into the side as a forced change for injured Quinton de Kock, completed his fourth T20I fifty in 32 balls before he smashed three sixes off Yuzvendra Chahal to virtually seal the chase.

Looking to finish it off with a six, he fell victim to Harshal Patel. In the next over, Bhuvneshwar Kumar dismissed Wayne Parnell to finish with superb figures of 4/13.

But it was not enough as South Africa just needed three runs from the last two overs and the in-form David Miller (20 not out) completed the win. The next T20I will be played in Visakhapatnam on Tuesday. The visitors seek their first bilateral T20 series win in India.

Making a comeback after more than seven months, Klaasen never took his foot off the pedal and got his team out of the woods after Bhuvneshwar pegged them back to 29/3 inside the powerplay overs. Klaasen first shared a match-turning 64 run partnership from 41 balls with skipper Temba Bavuma (35) before Miller joined him in the middle.

Earlier, the Indian batters found it tough to get going against some tight bowling display by South Africa to be restricted to a modest 148/6.

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.

Dinesh Karthik (30 not out from 21 balls) smashed two sixes and two fours to give the total some semblance of respectability.

Brief scores: India 148/6 (Shreyas 40, Karthik 30*; Nortje 2/36, Rabada 1/15); SA 149/6 in 18.2 overs (Klaasen 81, Bhuvneshwar 4/13).