Dinesh Karthik was on fire vs South Africa in the 4th T20 at Rajkot as he raced away to 55 off 27 deliveries to power India to a fighting total of 169.
With this inning, Dinesh Karthik became the oldest Indian player to score a half-century in T20s for India at 37 years. He went past MS Dhoni, who scored a fifty at 36 years of age.
Surprisingly, this is also Dinesh Karthik's first half-century in the T20 format in the blue jersey.
As far as the match is concerned, South Africa started really well with the ball. Ngidi first struck early to send Gaikwad back, and then Jansen came to scalp out Iyer. Kishan, as usual, started out slowly, but couldn't carry on and went back after scoring 27 off 26 deliveries.
South Africa was brilliant with their line and lentghs - not giving anything away to the Indian batters. Pant stayed for a while, but couldn't continue and failed yet again.
Karthik then joined Hardik at the crease. Both players played the waiting game until the 15th over and came out all guns blazing after that. Pandya's 46 and Karthik's 55 eventually helped India post a fighting total vs the Proteas, who will be disappointed with the way things panned out at the business end of the innings.
Chasing 170, South African batsmen fell like nine pins, and couldn't just get going. Avesh Khan took three wickets in an over to take the steam out of SA's chase, and India eventually won the match by a huge margin of 82 runs.
Teams:
India Playing XI
Ruturaj Gaikwad, Ishan Kishan, Shreyas Iyer, Rishabh Pant(w/c), Hardik Pandya, Dinesh Karthik, Axar Patel, Harshal Patel, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Yuzvendra Chahal, Avesh Khan
South Africa Playing XI
Temba Bavuma(c), Quinton de Kock(w), Rassie van der Dussen, David Miller, Heinrich Klaasen, Dwaine Pretorius, Keshav Maharaj, Marco Jansen, Lungi Ngidi, Tabraiz Shamsi, Anrich Nortje
