IND vs SA 3rd T20 Man of the Match today: Who is IND vs SA Man of the Match Visakhapatnam T20I?

IND vs SA 3rd T20 Man of the Match winner today: The Indian spinner won a T20I match award after a couple of years.

During the third T20I of the ongoing South Africa’s tour of India in Visakhapatnam, India beat South Africa by 48 runs to remain alive in the series. In what is India’s second victory in third match at this venue, it is their first under stand-in captain Rishabh Pant.

Put in to bat first by South Africa captain Temba Bavuma for the third time in a row, India put on board 179/5 in 20 overs in spite of a brief batting collapse in the middle overs. Looking to surpass the 200-run mark at one point in time, the hosts were definitely short by some runs.

The highlight of the Indian innings lied in the form of a 97-run opening partnership between Ruturaj Gaikwad (57) and Ishan Kishan (54). While Gaikwad hit seven fours and two sixes at a strike rate of 162.85 to register a maiden T20I half-century, Kishan hit five fours and two sixes at a strike rate of 154.28 to bring up his third half-century in the format.

IND vs SA 3rd T20 Man of the Match today

Chasing a 180-run target, all South Africa could manage was 131/10 in 19.1 overs. While several South African batters got to individual starts, none of them could convert his innings into a substantial one much like the first two matches.

More than their batting, the Indian bowling stood tall on its potential at the Dr. Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy ACA-VDCA Cricket Stadium on Tuesday. Captain Rishabh Pant (4) judiciously using spinner Yuzvendra Chahal resulted in him dismissing key middle-order batters namely Rassie van der Dussen (1), Dwaine Pretorius (20) and Heinrich Klaasen (29) giving away just 20 runs in the process.

South Africa, who constantly lost wickets after the powerplay, weren’t in an ideal position to move towards a formidable target. While Harshal Patel was the pick of the Indian bowlers with figures of 3.1-0-25-4, Chahal was awarded with his fourth T20I match award – first in two years.

“I bowled a lot of sliders and bowled quicker in the previous matches. Today, I changed my seam position. Spinning and getting the ball to dip are my strengths. Today I tried to get it to turn and bowl slower. When batters try to reverse-sweep, it becomes tough for the bowlers. But now I have a second plan and set fields accordingly,” Chahal told Star Sports during the post-match presentation ceremony.