English
New Delhi: Rassie van der Dussen (75 not out) and David Miller (64 not out) stitched an unbeaten 131-run stand to take South Africa to a seven-wicket win over India in the series opener at the Arun Jaitley Stadium on Thursday.
Miller and van der Dussen joined forces to forge an unbroken stand, enough for the visitors to record their highest chase in T20Is and put an end to India’s 12-match winning streak in the format. The seven-wicket win also means that South Africa are now 1-0 up in the five-match series.
“Myself having watched a lot of IPL games, having not got much of an opportunity to play, (I) had a pretty good idea of what their bowlers would do and the conditions (at hand),” Van der Dussen told reporters after the match.
“I spent two months here, been in the conditions, been in the heat, so I had adapted to that and that goes to everyone. We had a lot of guys in the IPL this year and that helped us in the first game to adapt quickly and get over the line,” he added.
van der Dussen, dropped on 29 by Shreyas Iyer, shed his cautious self by slamming Harshal for back-to-back sixes over long-on and backward square leg before pulling an outside the off-stump delivery through mid-wicket for four. He then brought up his fifty in 37 balls with a flat pulled six over deep mid-wicket in an over which yielded 22 runs.
Duo of Miller and van der Dussen knocked off the remaining 12 runs easily, with van der Dussen finishing off the chase, reverse sweeping Chahal for four to open their series with a win.
(With Inputs From IANS)
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