Records tumble in the second T20I as India and South Africa put on a run-fest

If ever the cliche of raindrops being replaced by cricket balls was to be used, it was at Guwahati on Gandhi Jayanti. When Team India plays bilaterals at home, the word fortress hardly does justice - it’s rarely broken. So, it’s not every day in 2022 that we get to say that India won their first-ever home bilateral T20I series against a certain team. But, the Proteas have over the years have been that good. Not a bad way to celebrate your 400th T20 appearance, is it Skipper Sharma?

We Indians are known for our hospitality, and in the first T20I made the visitors feel at home with a track that had the batsmen hopping and prodding at the ball. That first game produced 226 runs in total. The second game produced more than double the number - 457 combined runs. Even better, India batting first exceeded that total by a grand 11 runs. 237 - That by the way is also the highest score ever recorded against South Africa in T20Is.

The captions on our Instagram page on Matchdays often read, “It ain’t a matchday without a Virat Kohli milestone”. What happened yesterday? The run machine crossed the 11K mark in T20s - the first Indian to do so. At the other end, his partner Suryakumar Yadav crossed a smaller milestone of his own, but just as significant. 1K runs in T20Is might seem a little underwhelming for a 32-year-old, but what if we said he’s only faced 573 balls to get there? That by the way beats RCB’s Glenn Maxwell to the pole by 31 balls. As they say, good things always come in threes, so let’s round it off with another Kohli-SKY stat. The duo reached their 100-run partnership in just 42 balls - that’s now the fastest in T20Is. Ever.

So did the cloud have no silver lining(should we say rainbows?) for the Proteas? There were. The game looked done and dusted at 47/3, but how good were David Miller and Quinton de Kock? But, they might have unintentionally created a record they won’t cherish. 174 runs - the highest partnership in a losing cause in T20Is. David Miller scored 106 of those runs, and on the way drove past JP Duminy and is now the highest-ever run-scorer for South Africa in T20Is with 2050 runs.

With all the talk after the first T20I being about Strike rates - here’s a quick puzzle for you, our reader. When was the last time 4 of India’s Top 5 scored at a strike rate of more than 175?