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Proteas crumble as Markram’s lone stand falls short

rugby14 December 2025 17:07| © MWP
By:Neil Manthorp
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India’s bowlers capitalised on a lively pitch offering seam movement and bounce to dismiss South Africa for a distinctly modest total of 117 before opener Abhishek Sharma smashed the home side towards a seven-wicket victory in the third T20 International at the HPCA Cricket Stadium in Dharamsala on Sunday.

Abhishek hooked the first ball of the run-chase from Lungi Ngidi over fine for six and slapped both Marco Jansen and Ottneil Baartman for further maximums over cover to set the tone for a second Proteas mauling before miscuing Corbin Bosch to wide mid off where Aiden Markram held a fine, running catch.

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Abhishek’s 35 came from just 18 balls.

Earlier Markram top-scored with a brilliant, man-alone innings of 61 from 46 deliveries as wickets fell at regular intervals with Arshdeep Singh (2-13) and Harshit Rana (2-34) generating lavish swing with the new ball in the cool and rarified atmosphere of the Himalayan foothills.

The South African captain reached 50 from 41 balls of grim defiance before straight driving Harshit for two sixes to take 18 runs from the 18th over to push the total over 100 before edging a swing against Arshdeep to ‘keeper Jitesh Sharma having earlier collected six fours with some classic strokes in tough conditions.

Reeza Hendricks (0) was trapped lbw third ball by a beauty of an inswinger from left armer Arshdeep and Quinton de Kock (1) was lbw to right armer Harshit, also third ball.

Dewald Brevis (2) dragged a wide drive against Harshit onto his stumps and the tourists were 7-3 at the start of the fourth over with a Himalayan mountain to climb towards respectability.

Tristan Stubbs’s poor form continued with a limp edge to ‘keeper Jitesh against Hardik Pandya to depart for nine and the decision to promote Bosch (4) to No 6 paid no dividends as part-time seamer Shivan Dube nipped a delivery back to hit off stump.

Donovan Ferreira (20) was only the second batsmen to reach double figures with a brief counter-attack which produced a four and one of only four sixes in the innings before missing a slog-sweep against crafty legspinner Varun Chakaravarthy (2-11) who then clean bowled Marco Jansen (2).

Opener Shubman Gill stuttered to a run-a-ball 28 before inside-edging Jansen onto his stumps and captain Suryakumar Yadav (12) was well caught in the deep by Baartman off Ngidi but the game was long over courtesy of Abhishek’s early assault.

Tilak Sharma’s 25* from 34 balls seemed unnecessarily ponderous but Dube (10*) concluded the formalities briskly with a six and a four to reach 120-3 and victory with 25 balls to spare.

India take a 2-1 lead in the five-match series after South Africa’s 51-run victory on Thursday inspired by Quinton de Kock’s 46-ball 90. India won the first match by 101-runs after dismissing the tourists for a record low of 74.

The fourth match is on Wednesday and the fifth on Friday.

India: Abhishek Sharma, Shubman Gill, Suryakumar Yadav (captain), Tilak Varma, Hardik Pandya, Shivam Dube, Jitesh Sharma (wkt), Harshit Rana, Arshdeep Singh, Kuldeep Yadav, Varun Chakaravarthy

South Africa: Reeza Hendricks, Quinton de Kock (wkt), Aiden Markram (captain), Dewald Brevis, Tristan Stubbs, Donovan Ferreira, Marco Jansen, Corbin Bosch, Anrich Nortje, Lungi Ngidi, Ottneil Baartman

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