Remember how South Africa practiced bowling right lengths against left-handers, at practice, before the IND vs SA Super 8 clash on Sunday? Well, that bore immediate fruit as Aiden Markram got rid of Ishan Kishan in the very first over. Something that has been happening with the hosts in every match they played in the T20 World Cup 2026. The only difference being, the other times the batter departing for a duck was — Abhishek Sharma.
Ishan Kishan & Abhishek Sharma fail together
Make no mistake, Abhishek soon got out for 15 from 12, leaving the team in a lurch, while chasing 188. This just goes on to show team’s reluctance to rectify their mistake; having so many left-handers puts the right-hand off-spinners in an advantageous position; but there is hardly anything that can be done for now.
Abhishek has scored only 15 runs in 4 innings so far, adding pressure on the team, while it turned out to be a rare failure for Ishan. Going further, it was the same old story with Tilak Varma as well. Until now, he had been scoring 20s, but his strike-rate was under the scanner.
Lefties vs Off-spinners under scanner
In Ahmedabad, it was only 1 from 2. That only aggravates the problem for India. Six left-handers in top 8, with some of them misfiring. As for the Proteas, Marco Jansen was the one who inflicted his share of misery on India, by picking two key wickets in only his two overs.
Earlier, David Miller had slammed 63 from 35 to take his team out of a hole; they were 20/3 at one stage. He paired well with Dewald Brevis and Tristan Stubbs to take the side to 187.
