T20 World Cup 2026 - Ind vs SA - How South Africa got the better of India batters in Ahmedabad

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Cracking the Varun Chakravarthy code was what set up South Africa’s win over India, giving them a total – 187 for 7 – that was formidable enough. But was it out of India’s reach? It might not have been had it not been for a lot of “out-of-the-box planning” with the ball and in the field from South Africa, which stopped India at 111 for a whopping 76-run victory margin.

Ishan Kishan fell for a four-ball duck. To offspin. Lungi Ngidi didn’t take a wicket, but conceded just 15 runs from his four overs. Marco Jansen picked up four wickets at an economy rate of 5.73. And Keshav Maharaj took out Hardik Pandya and Rinku Singh later in the script after choking them.

The offspin issue, as discussed before on these pages, is something that’s dogging India since the T20 World Cup started. In Ahmedabad on Sunday night, it also afflicted the one batter who had looked immune to it.

“Ishan Kishan normally takes down offspin. [You talk about it being] an easy game, just knock it around, but he’s a guy that if you bowl offspin like that to him ten times in a row, probably seven times he will whack it for a boundary, because he has done it over and over again,” Faf du Plessis said on ESPNcricinfo’s TimeOut programme after the game. “Surprisingly, there’s this offspin thing that’s happening to team India now – Ishan Kishan is a great player of offspin; Tilak Varma can play offspin; SKY [Suryakumar Yadav] can play offspin. But all of a sudden, you throw an offspinner there and a wicket falls in the first over.”

It’s become a “habit”, Varun Aaron said on the same programme. “An offspinner getting a wicket in the first over is pretty much becoming a habit,” he said, while du Plessis added, “That pressure will be heavy on their shoulders” for the rest of the tournament.

So offspin is problem number one. Pace-off bowling from the big, quick men was another on the night. ESPNcricinfo’s ball-by-ball data put the slower deliveries Ngidi sent down at 54.17%. The official broadcast had it closer to 70%.

“The word on the street is if something is working, you stick to it. You don’t have to change. And that was done brilliantly. Lungi’s plan was to take pace off the ball. And he just stuck to it”

Faf du Plessis

“I’ve seen pace-off more than I used to see. When you think of a venue like Ahmedabad, you won’t say ‘pace-off’. It’s not the first thing that jumps at you tactically,” du Plessis said. “So I think what would have happened there are two things: there would have been some talk [about] certain batters that we’d like to take some pace off.

“But I think they would have gone from the first innings and maybe there was an adjustment talk, a little strategy session with the bowlers, that ‘pace off is really working on this wicket, so let’s make that the Plan A’. I think Lungi bowled five slower balls in a row in the powerplay? It’s unheard of.

“The word on the street is if something is working, you stick to it. You don’t have to change. And that was done brilliantly. Lungi’s plan was to take pace off the ball. And he just stuck to it.”

The South African planning wasn’t restricted to Aiden Markram’s offspin at the top and Ngidi’s slower balls later.

“Keshav Maharaj, brilliant bowling. Bowled everything wide to Hardik Pandya, just didn’t give him anything. Made sure that it was always out of his hitting arc,” Aaron said. “Look, Hardik Pandya didn’t want to knock those singles around [in his 18 off 17 balls]. The bowlers just didn’t give him an inch.

“I think brilliant bowling overall, except those length balls bowled to Shivam Dube [by Kagiso Rabada, Corbin Bosch and Jansen]. I though they could have really bumped him. Otherwise, it was absolutely spot-on planning.”

Spot on, and out of the box, as du Plessis explained when talking about the strategy against the out-of-runs Abhishek Sharma, who ended his run of ducks – three of them – with 15 from 12 balls. He hit a six and two fours, so that’s just four scoring shots in 12 balls.

“There was a point and a cover out. Once again, tactically aware of how we’re going to bowl to him. These are his strengths. This is what he normally does. So let’s try to take him away from that and make him think of scoring in different areas,” du Plessis said. “Now whether that brought the wicket, we don’t know. But shows you there was planning, out-of-the-box planning.”

It worked like a charm for South Africa.

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