IND vs SA 1st T20: ‘Surya woke up after he got hit!’

Surya woke up after he got hit!

“He [Suryakumar Yadav] woke up after he got hit!” KL Rahul would say later. It was a brute of a first delivery from Anrich Nortje that cut in sharply with bounce to ram into Surya’s ribcage. The next ball could have been the wicket ball but proved the jail-break moment. He was now on an off-stump guard and tried to swing a short-of-length kicker to the on side but was done in by the pace, the line, and the bounce. But the ball flew off the leading edge over third man for a six, leaving Nortje with a wry smile. Next ball, Nortje went for a yorker but sprayed it on to the pads, and Surya picked it up and over deep backward square-leg bonndary.

Before Surya’s entry, Rabada had harassed KL Rahul and picked up Rohit Sharma with a wonderful away-seamer. It lined up on the off stump, sucking Rohit into a forward defensive prod but seamed away ever so late and just about to take the edge. With 3 slips in, Kohli played and missed, connected once with a risky waft against Rabada, and then edged a short and well-outside-off ball from Nortje to the keeper.

Temba Bavuma’s bad days continue. He is the captain of South Africa T20 team but wasn’t picked by any franchises in the new domestic T20 league in South Africa. He had admitted being “very disappointed and let down”. Last time he played a T20 for South Africa, incidentally in Rajkot, he was hit on his shoulder by a bouncer from Bhuvneshwar Kumar and in the same over injured his elbow while diving to finish a run. That injury not only forced him to retire hurt from the game but ruled him out of South Africa’s tour of England.

Quinton de Kock too wasn’t on that tour of England and their replacements Riley Rossouw and Reeza Hendricks smashed runs at a brisk strike rate to put pressure back on Bavuma. They retained Rossouw and benched Hendricks to make way for Bavuma’s return this series. Tongues are already wagging in the South African media about his form and strike rate and one could sense he wanted to make an emphatic return.

He first judged the outswinger from Deepak Chahar and went for a big booming cover drive but failed to connect. Next one, another outswinger, was toe-ended back to the bowler. Then came the decisive blow via a cracking inswinger that started well outside off, landed just outside off, and went through the huge bat-and-pad gap to knock out the middle stump. Bavuma it seemed was shaping for an off drive, and then tried to adjust his bat-face to make some contact with the nipbacker but couldn’t.

Not that de Kock faired any better. He went for the big slash but for the umpteenth time in his career, he got an inside edge off Arshdeep Singh and dragged it on to his stumps.