Indore: Stormy century of explosive batsman Riley Russo, South Africa easily defeated India in the third T20 match. This was the first century of Russo’s career and that too in only his 20th match. However, after winning the first two matches, India won the series 2-1. However, for the first time, Team India lost a big chance to do a clean sweep. In the third and final T20 International against India in Indore on Tuesday, Africa scored a mammoth score of 227 for 3 wickets. After this victory, the African team will take a mental edge from here for the ODI series to be held from 6 October.
Riley played an unbeaten 100 off 48 balls with 8 sixes and 7 fours and also shared a crucial 90 for the second wicket with Quinton de Kock (68) and 87 runs for the third wicket with Tristan Stubbs (23). In the end, David Miller scored an unbeaten 19 runs in just 5 balls. The South African batsmen put on 108 runs in the last 8 overs.
Apart from Dinesh Karthik (45), none of the batsmen could play from India’s side and wickets kept falling one after the other at regular intervals. Captain Rohit, Suryakumar Yadav, and Shreyas Iyer failed miserably. Birthday boy Rishabh Pant also showed some good hands, but his innings could not go long and he was caught on a personal score of 27. At one point it felt that the Indian batsman would not be able to play the full 20 overs, but the later batsmen or say bowlers Harshal Patel, Deepak Chahar, and Umesh Yadav showed good hands and dragged the match to the last over and saved the shame. Deepak Chahar played a fast and important inning of 31 runs in 17 balls.
Fiercely beaten fast bowler
The four fast bowlers of India are Deepak Chahar (one wicket for 48 runs in four overs), Mohammad Siraj (44 runs without a wicket in four overs), Harshal Patel (49 runs in four overs), and Umesh Yadav (in three overs). One wicket for 34 runs) proved to be quite expensive.
Indian captain Rohit Sharma won the toss and decided to bowl. De Kock looked in rhythm from the beginning. He hit sixes on Mohammad Siraj and Deepak Chahar. Bavuma scored the first run in the third innings of the series with a run-off Siraj. His struggle, however, continued and after scoring three runs, he was caught by Rohit on the very first ball of Umesh Yadav.
Riley Russo started his innings with two consecutive fours on Umesh and then also hit sixes on Ashwin and Siraj. South Africa scored 48 for one wicket in the power play. De Kock and Russo hit six sixes on Ashwin in the ninth over. De Kock completed his half-century in 33 balls with a six on Umesh.
