NEW DELHI: Indian captain Suryakumar Yadav has vowed to come back stronger after India suffered a crushing 76-run loss to South Africa in the Super Eights Group 1 match of the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup.“I feel like we were always in the game when we started. I think we batted really well in the beginning, 21 to 3, and the way they batted after that from 7 to 15, I think they batted really well, and then we got back into the game later. Overall, as far as we can see, we played really well, but we could have batted a little better. I think sometimes 0-18, if you have 18 you can’t win a game in power bowlers but you can lose a match in the power bowl, we lost too many wickets in the power bowl and then we couldn’t have the small, small partnerships that we wanted to chase 180-185, but that’s part of the game, we’ll sit back and come back stronger,” Surya said after the match.
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After winning the toss, South Africa posted 187/7, powered by David Miller’s 35-ball 63 and Dewald Brevis’ 29-ball 45. The duo stitched a fourth-wicket partnership of 97 runs from just 51 balls. Marco Jansen (4/22), Keshav Maharaj (3/24) and Corbin Bosch (2/12) also contributed with the ball, while Lungi Ngidi was held to 4 overs for 15 runs.“I think everyone knows that their (Bumrah-Arshdeep) combination was very lethal. They both played together. If you see today also, they both 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 played really well in partnership and that’s what we both want from them and Sury has got that from both of them. added.India’s response has wavered from the start. Ishan Kishan fell to Markram for a duck while Abhishek Sharma (15) and Tilak Varma (1) were dismissed in the over. Shivam Dube top-scored with 42 and Hardik Pandya contributed 18 but India were bowled out for 111 in 18.5 overs.“I hope we bat well, mix well and bowl well (talking about plans for the next game against Zimbabwe). That’s all. We’ll try to keep it simple, play the same brand of cricket we want to play and nothing will change. I think we’ll come back strong,” Surya said.The loss in front of 90,954 fans is India’s first defeat at the ICC since the 2023 ODI World Cup final, so they need wins against Zimbabwe and the West Indies to stay in semi-final contention at a net rate of -3.8.
