Angry at their team’s poor performance, Indian fans disrupted the second T20 by throwing bottles on to the field before South Africa eventually beat India by six wickets in Cuttack on Monday.
The crowd’s behaviour took the shine away from South Africa’s dominant performance as they comfortably won the game to clinch the series 2-0 with a game to play.
The match was stopped twice as police tried to regain control of fans angered by their team’s surrender and hurled bottles and debris over the safety nets and on to field. As appeals for calm failed, the umpires took the players off the field. At one point, the match referee Chris Broad considered abandoning the match and possibly applying the Duckworth-Lewis method. Which South Africa would have won anyway.
After winning the toss and electing to bowl, Albie Morkel (3-12) and Imran Tahir (2-24) led the way to limit India to 92, their second lowest T20 score ever. As predicted this surface differed greatly from the conditions the teams encountered in the first T20 last Friday which was a quick, bouncy pitch.
As he did in the first game, JP Duminy (26 not out) again guided South Africa to victory as they reached 96-4 in 17.1 overs after AB de Villiers and Faf du Plessis were dismissed after getting good starts.
Morkel, replacing Marchant de Lange in the starting XI, was the pick of the South African bowlers, sending down a total of 13 dot balls.
He was well supported by Tahir and Chris Morris who took two wickets each as the visitors took wickets at regular intervals to break India’s momentum. The home side struggled to get going and will rue the run-outs of Virat Kohli for nought without facing a ball and Rohit Sharma (22) who again looked dangerous after scoring a century in the first game.
India’s 92 came in 17.2 overs and they will be desperate to get a result in the final match to take some winning momentum into the ODI series.
