Explained: How India's Test-match lengths floored South Africa in Dharamsala

NEW DELHI: South Africa captain Aiden Markram admitted that his team was outplayed by India’s disciplined bowling in challenging, cold conditions during their seven-wicket defeat in the third T20I at the HPCA Stadium, where the visitors were dismissed for 117.


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India’s bowlers shared the spoils, with Arshdeep Singh, Harshit Rana, Varun Chakravarthy and Kuldeep Yadav claiming two wickets each, while Hardik Pandya and Shivam Dube picked up one apiece. South Africa slumped to 30/4 inside the first seven overs and were unable to recover. In response, India chased down the target with 25 balls remaining to take a 2-1 lead in the five-match series.



“It’s hard to say. Tough conditions up front. They got the ball in the right areas and before you know it, you’re four, five, six down. So, got to give credit to their bowling. Few of them bowled a Test-match delivery, Test-match length, it was challenging. So if conditions are the same moving forward, you’re just going to have to find ways to get through that and try to put some pressure back on them.”

Reflecting further at the post-match presentation, Markram added, “You’ve just got to give credit to that bowling unit on the night. It was tough. You want to play in this format, but they didn’t give us much to score off. Tried to just take it deep. We obviously lost a couple of wickets, so you think to try to take it deep and make a play at the end.”

Top-scoring with 61, Markram felt a total of 140 to 150 would have put South Africa firmly in the contest. “The whole time I was thinking maybe 140, 150 - I think we were massively in the game.”

“So again, if I come off at the death there, I feel like I should be hitting that ball for six, then it could be a different game. So it is small margins. We’re not going to look too deeply into it. We’ll have to have a few answers if conditions are the same. That’s the case.”

Markram also highlighted the importance of identifying the right match-ups and being positive when opportunities arise. “In conditions like these, it’s probably picking a bowler on the night that you feel like you can target. I don’t think it’s a wicket where you can just get away with trying to hit everyone.”

“So it’s finding that match-up, and when the match-up comes, completely backing yourself. In between there, try to be efficient, try to keep the scoreboard ticking. I think you get to that score of 140, 150.”

He stressed that players should continue to express themselves despite the difficult outing. “You never want to curb players, you never want to speak any negative language about keeping the ball on the floor or whatever the case might be. You always want to encourage the boys to play. Each person will take lessons from tonight and be better cricketers afterwards.”

Markram signed off by acknowledging that South Africa could have done a few things better with the ball as well. “Obviously the start. They were always going to play that way - so credit to him (Abhishek), he came off. But we’re always going to gauge it on the amount of balls we landed in the right area.”

“Possibly in those first three or four overs, not quite enough in the right area. And if we get them in the right area and they go for 60, then so be it. That’s probably the bit we’ll gauge.”

“But after that, I thought they were much better. So another positive, extending the game as much as they did by holding length. Holding length pretty well and consistently, and yeah, asking some good questions.”



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