GQEBERHA: Varun Chakravarthy’s five-wicket haul went in vain as Tristan Stubbs held on to his nerves to steer South Africa to a three-wicket victory against India in the second T20I here at St. George’s Park on Sunday.
Chasing a modest total of 129, South Africa achieved the target in 19 overs with Stubbs hitting a boundary off Arshdeep Singh to finish the match.
The hosts needed 13 runs off the final two overs, however, Stubbs struck four boundaries in the 19th over to win the match with an over to spare.
Stubbs scored an unbeaten 47 off 40 with the help of seven boundaries. He came out to bat in the sixth over with South Africa struggling at 33-2.
Varun Chakravarthy kept India in command as South Africa kept losing wickets at regular intervals and soon found themselves reeling at 86-7 in 15.4 overs.
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With 39 runs needed off 26 balls, Gerald Coetzee joined hands with Stubbs and they stitched a 42-run stand to win the game for South Africa.
For India, Chakravarthy led the bowling attack with brilliant bowling figures of 5-17, while Singh and Arshdeep Singh managed one wicket each.
Earlier, India managed 124-6 after being invited to bat by South Africa. Hardik Pandya top-scored with a cautious 39-run knock from 45 balls.
Meanwhile, Tilak Varma and Axar Patel played crucial knocks of 20 and 27 runs respectively.
South Africa’s Marco Jansen, Gerald Coetzee, Andile Simelane, Aiden Markram and Nqabayomzi Peter grabbed one wicket each.
The third and fourth matches of the series will be played in Centurion and Johannesburg on 13 and 15 November respectively.
South Africa Playing XI: Ryan Rickelton, Reeza Hendricks, Aiden Markram (c), Tristan Stubbs, Heinrich Klaasen (wk), David Miller, Marco Jansen, Andile Simelane, Gerald Coetzee, Keshav Maharaj, Nqaba Peter
India Playing XI: Sanju Samson (wk), Abhishek Sharma, Suryakumar Yadav (c), Tilak Varma, Hardik Pandya, Rinku Singh, Axar Patel, Arshdeep Singh, Ravi Bishnoi, Avesh Khan, Varun Chakravarthy
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