Varun Chakravarthy shattered Ravichandran Ashwin's and Ravi Bishnoi's joint all-time record for India in T20Is on Wednesday (November 13) with a two-wicket haul against South Africa at SuperSport Park in Centurion.
R Ashwin and Ravi Bishnoi jointly held the record for claiming the most wickets (9) for India in a T20I bilateral series before Varun reduced it to dust on Wednesday. Notably, Ashwin had claimed nine wickets in a T20I series at home against Sri Lanka in 2016 and Bishnoi had equalled his record by grabbing as many wickets against Australia in a home series last year.
Meanwhile, Chakravarthy snared two scalps and became the Indian with the most wickets (10) in a T20I bilateral series. The mystery spinner accounted for Reeza Hendricks and the South African skipper Aiden Markram. However, Varun was fairly expensive during his spell and leaked runs at an alarming rate of 13.50 runs per over.
However, to be fair to Varun, the conditions at SuperSport Park were tailor-made for batting and the room for error was the bare minimum.
Suryakumar Yadav 'very happy' with India's win in Centurion
Team India survived a late onslaught from bowling allrounder Marco Jansen (54 runs off 17 deliveries) and emerged victorious in the 3rd T20I by 11 runs to take an unassailable 2-1 lead in the ongoing four-match series.
Skipper Suryakumar Yadav was pleased with his team's effort and happy with how the youngsters were subscribing to the idea of playing with fearless intent.
"Very happy. What we spoke about in the team meetings, we played the brand of cricket that we wanted to play. That is what we have been telling them (youngsters) to do - similar to what they have been doing in the nets, for their franchises and for their states. Even if they miss out in a few innings, they back their intent and their game," Suryakumar said during the post-match presentation.
The Men in Blue will take the field against the Proteas in the series decider on November 15 (Friday) at The Wanderers in Johannesburg.
