How South Africa scripted India's defeat

The DJ at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad had the toughest job on Sunday night. Of trying to wake up a crowd of 82,000 that had gone into a slumber after India's powerplay in their tall chase. Scotland's Brad Currie equated playing in front of 42,000 fans at Eden Gardens to playing "cricket in a nightclub" last week. In comparison, Ahmedabad resembled a library, report agencies.

The horror of watching India collapse was telling. By the time Hardik Pandya was out in the 15th over of India's 188 chase, there was a stream of blue that began to leave in a torrent.

Defending T20 World Cup champions India need "two big performances" to reach the semi-finals after Sunday's huge defeat to South Africa, said their assistant coach.

India came into the T20 World Cup as hot favourites on home soil but were thrashed by 76 runs in the Super Eights as 80,000 fans at the massive Narendra Modi stadium were stunned into silence.

India collapsed to 111 all out in 18.5 overs in response to South Africa's 187-7 as their 12-match win streak in the T20 World Cup came to a crashing end.

The magnitude of the defeat has left India with a desperate net run-rate of - 3.8 and likely needing to win their last two Super Eight matches convincingly to make it to the semi-finals.

But the start was dreamy. It felt like a throwback to that balmy November night in 2023, when Jasprit Bumrah jolted a stunned crowd back to life, most notably after trapping Steven Smith with a slower delivery as a nation dared to dream again, of reliving 2011.

Quinton de Kock and Ryan Rickelton were undone inside the powerplay by Bumrah's craft. De Kock fell to a loose hack off a nip-backer; Rickelton was deceived by a cutter that gripped and climbed just enough, forcing a leading edge that ballooned to mid-off for the simplest of catches. South Africa were 20 for 3, and it all felt eerily familiar. Until it did not.

The game suddenly

and alarmingly began to slip because South Africa refused to retreat, just as India hadn't for much of the lead-up to the T20 World Cup. India had adopted this very approach,

which led many to believe - not without merit - that they were runaway favourites to defend their crown.

You only had to go as far back as Ahmedabad in December 2025 to reinforce that. When India muscled 231 on a similar black-soil surface, with the lowest strike rate among those who faced at least 20 balls being Abhishek Sharma's 161.90.

Dewald Brevis and David Miller counterpunched, and in the process, they neutralised one of India's biggest weapons, Varun Chakravarthy, by

reducing him largely to a googly bowler on a surface offering little early turn. Miller repeatedly cleared his front leg to slog-sweep or hit straight down the ground. Brevis opened up the off side, creating room to swing cleanly rather than being tied down by Varun's metronomic accuracy.

South Africa's middle order approached the game very differently from India's - and with good reason. The surfaces in this tournament haven't been the flat roads India have played on in the build-up.

In the group stages, India often erred on the side of caution, especially just after the powerplay,

but they were repeatedly rescued by one extraordinary innings that lifted them to defendable totals.

Against USA, it was Suryakumar Yadav. In Delhi against Namibia and in Colombo against

Pakistan, Ishan Kishan's incredible onslaught early on against the slow bowlers gave them a turbocharge.