Classy Bhuvneshwar snuffles out Proteas hopes early

Bhuvneshwar Kumar put the finishing touches to what has been an outstanding tour for the lower-order all-rounder as he claimed his first five-wicket haul to round off India’s 28-run victory over the Proteas at the Wanderers on Sunday.

India proved to be far too ring-wise for the inexperienced South African line-up to go 1-0 up in the three-match T20 International Series.

India, thanks in the main to Shikhar Dhawan (72 off 39 balls, 10 fours and 2 sixes) with good support from the rest of the order, all of whom reached double figures, set the Proteas an extremely challenging target of 204.

Kumar made sure that was not going to happen when he took two wickets up front, including that of home captain JP Duminy, and then three more at the back end, including top scorer Reeza Hendricks (70 off 50 balls, 8 fours and a six).

His figures were the second best for India behind Yuzvendra Chahal’s 6/22 against England and were the best ever achieved at this venue.

The Proteas’ day got off to a bad start when AB de Villiers was ruled out of the entire series through a knee injury picked up at practice.

It was nevertheless not entirely a day of doom and gloom for the Proteas.

Tabraiz Shamsi seems to have found out a way to dismiss Virat Kohli.

He came literally within a millimetre of having the Indian captain stumped during the Port Elizabeth ODI and got him out twice on Sunday, first denied by a dropped catch on the boundary before getting his man LBW.

Hendricks was another inexperienced 28-year-old to show that he is up for the battle of international competition.

The Proteas went into the match with five specialist bowlers with a combined total of 30 international caps with Junior Dala also being a debutant and, in retrospect, the Proteas should probably have given the new ball to Chris Morris ahead of either Dala or Dane Paterson.

Dala nevertheless had bowling figures of 2/47.

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