Not 5 or 10, the Indian cricket team fell 76 runs short in Ahmedabad. Despite an all-timer of a performance by Jasprit Bumrah, the Men in Blue were utterly dominated by South Africa at the Narendra Modi Stadium in what was their first Super 8 match of the T20 World Cup 2026.
Bumrah shoulders the entire weight
Chasing 188, India missed someone who could stand up when it mattered the most. Something no Indian batter managed to do. Abhishek Sharma’s duck luck got transferred to Ishan Kishan. Tilak Varma did exactly what he was advised to by the management, and Suryakumar Yadav couldn’t time the ball at all.
Shivam Dube, the man in form, looked listless as well. The decision to leave Axar Patel out for Washington Sundar turned out to be a horrendous one. It wasn’t just India’s bowling, barring Bumrah and Arshdeep Singh, who let them down, but the batters as well.
Listless batting
Chasing a mammoth target, India missed Virat Kohli big time. The Indian legend retired after winning the T20 World Cup 2024, and boy was his absence felt. You see, the Men in Blue have chased a target of over 150 just thrice. In each game, Kohli wasn’t just India’s highest scorer but also ‘player of the match’.
Two of them were knockouts: 72* in the 2014 semifinal against South Africa and 82* in the 2016 quarterfinal against Australia. The last one was that infamous 82* against Pakistan at the MCG in 2022. It wasn’t a knockout match, but it was a pressure match since India had lost to Pakistan in 2021, their first-ever defeat in a World Cup to Pakistan.
India needed a batter to put their hand up and do it for them, like Kohli used to. Bumrah had done that with the ball, albeit with little to no support from other bowlers. But not one batter showed that fight. Granted, the surface wasn’t easy to bat on, but South Africa had scored 187 runs on it. You’d think India would be able to match that. Of course, that wasn’t the case.
After the United States of America (USA) gave India a run for its money in Mumbai, Suryakumar Yadav called the game an eye-opener of sorts. Taking that into regard, this one’s a proper shocker.
What next?
India now has 4 days to ponder over the plentiful mistakes made against South Africa before taking on Zimbabwe at the MA Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai. Considered as favourites to win in the T20 World Cup, and rightly so, India is now in a precarious situation. And if things don’t go right, we might have to rely on other teams and net run rate (NRR) to qualify for the semifinals.
