NEW DELHI: Indian captain Suryakumar Yadav vowed a stronger comeback after India suffered a crushing 76-run loss to South Africa in their Group 1 Super Eights clash of the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup.“I feel we were always in the game when we started. I think we bowled really well in the beginning, 21 for 3, and the way they batted after that from 7 to 15, I think they batted really well, and then we came back again in the game later on. Overall, if we see, we bowled really well, but we could have batted a little better. My thing is sometimes you’ve got to think, if you’re chasing 180-185, you can’t win the game in the powerplay, but you might lose the game in the powerplay. We lost too many wickets in the powerplay and then we couldn’t have small, small partnerships which we wanted for chasing 180-185, but that’s part of the game. We learn from it, we’ll sit back and then come back stronger,” Surya said after the match.
After winning the toss, South Africa posted 187/7, powered by David Miller’s 63 off 35 balls and Dewald Brevis’ 45 off 29 balls. The duo stitched a 97-run fourth-wicket partnership off just 51 balls. Marco Jansen (4/22), Keshav Maharaj (3/24), and Corbin Bosch (2/12) also contributed with the ball, while Lungi Ngidi kept things tight with 4 overs for 15 runs.“I think everyone knows their combination (Bumrah-Arshdeep) has been very lethal. Both of them have played together. If you see today also, both of them bowled eight overs, picked around five wickets and gave around 45-50 runs. If I’m not wrong, I’m not good with numbers. But they bowled really well in partnership and that’s what we want from them. Both are experienced and it’s good to have both of them in our side,” Surya added.India’s reply faltered from the start. Ishan Kishan fell for a duck to Markram, while Abhishek Sharma (15) and Tilak Varma (1) were dismissed in the powerplay. Shivam Dube top-scored with 42, and Hardik Pandya contributed 18, but India were bowled out for 111 in 18.5 overs.“Hopefully bat well, bowl well and field well (Talking about the plans for the next game vs Zimbabwe). That’s it. We’ll try and keep it simple, play the same brand of cricket which we want to play and nothing changes. I think we’ll come back strong,” Surya said.The loss, in front of 90,954 fans, is India’s first ICC event defeat since the 2023 ODI World Cup final, leaving them needing wins against Zimbabwe and West Indies to stay in semi-final contention with a net run rate of -3.8.
