Proteas must win in Lucknow to keep T20I series alive
India v South Africa | 4th T20I | Wednesday, 17th December | Ekana Cricket Stadium, Lucknow | 3:30pm
Wednesday’s game between India and South Africa is the fourth game of a five-match series. India are currently leading 2-1, which means the Proteas need to win to keep their chances of winning the series alive.
India are the top ranked T20I side in the world while South Africa are ranked fifth.
It has been feast and famine for Proteas opener Quinton de Kock. he made 90 in the second game of the series but recorded scores of 1 and 0 in the other two games.
Jasprit Bumrah and Axar Patel both missed the third T20I in Dharamsala – the former for personal reasons, the latter for health reasons. Both should be available to play in Lucknow, although their replacements Harshit Rana (two for 34) and Kuldeep Yadav (two for 12) both performed well in their absence.
In many ways this will be a home game for Proteas skipper Aiden Markram who plays his IPL cricket for Lucknow Super Giants, who are based at the Ekana Stadium.
India’s Tilak Varma, who is the sixth ranked T20I batsman in the world, is averaging 57 in the current series. He has registered scored of 62, 26 and 26*.
Varun Chakravarthy and Lungi Ngidi are the two leading wicket takers in the series. They have each claimed six wickets, Chakravarthy at an average of 9,83 and Ngidi at an average of 13,33.
The World’s number one T20I batsman Abhishek Sharma hasn’t scored the volume of runs he would have liked thus far, but the runs he has scored have come very quickly. He is currently scoring at a rate of 181.57.
India have won four of their last five T20Is against South Africa.
Concern is starting to mount around the form of India’s T20I skipper Suryakumar Yadav who has now gone 24 games without reaching 50. He is still the ninth ranked batsman in the format, but he is sliding down the rankings. He has made scores of 12, 5 and 12 in the series, dismissed in two of his three innings by Lungi Ngidi.
Venue: Bharat Ratna Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee Ekana Cricket Stadium, Lucknow
Wednesday’s game will be the seventh T20I played at this venue and the first ever for South Africa.
India have played three T20I at the venue and they have won all three of them.
Of the six games played at the venue the team that has won the toss has lost four of them.
On winning the toss there seems to be little preference in terms of what to choose – three times the winning skipper has chosen to bat and three times he has chosen to field.
Despite the even split in opting to bat or field first, results suggest that batting first is the way to go, with the team that bats first at the ground winning five of the six T20Is played.
No T20I at the venue has ever ended as a No Result.
The average first innings score at the venue is 151.
The highest score made at the ground was India’s 199 for two from 20 overs, made against Sri Lanka in 2022.
The lowest score defended on the ground was Afghanistan’s 156 for eight from 20 overs made against the West Indies in 2019.
Weather:
Expect it to be sunny with a high temperature of approximately 23 degrees dropping down to a low around 12. The daytime conditions will be clear and sunny, with minimal chance of rain while night will be mostly clear. A light northwest wind is expected, making for pleasant weather, ideal for cricket. There will be no rain.
Form (most recent game first):
India: W, L, W, NR, W.
South Africa: L, W, L, L, L.
Key player:
India, Abhishek Sharma: Coming in at the top of the order Abhishek has been explosive, even if he hasn’t scored as many runs as he many have wanted. What he does do is score quickly and as was the case in the third T20I, he can change the scope of a match in just a handful of overs. Abhishek boasts the highest T20I career strike rate and he will want to make his mark in Lucknow which is a venue that is known to be batting friendly.
South Africa, Aiden Markram: This is very much a homecoming for Markram who had a good season playing for LSG in the IPL. The Proteas’ skipper is also in good form and was the only Proteas batsman to look vaguely comfortable in the third T20I where he scored 61 runs out if a total of 120. Markram has made starts in each of the games in the series thus far and is the second highest scorer in the series (behind Tilak Varma) with 104 runs.
Verdict: South Africa
India may be leading 2-1, but this has been an odd series with the games, which should be closely contested, all won by large margins. It seems whoever can claim the early ascendency ends up winning well. South Africa may be experimenting with combinations ahead of the T20I World Cup, but they are also desperate to win the series, and they will come hard in Lucknow. This has been a closely contested tour across all formats and Markram and his men will want to make sure that they are able to head into the final game of the series still in the running.
