Courtesy: CSA/X
On Friday, November 8, Sanju Samson, the Indian opening batter, smashed back-to-back hundreds in the T20I format, to put his team in a commanding position against South Africa in the first match of the series. At the Kingsmead in Durban, Sanju Samson showcased an amazing display of power hitting in front of a hapless South African bowling attack, to complete his ton in just 47 balls after striking nine maximums in his innings.
After being put into bat first by South Africa, Sanju Samson lost his opening partner Abhishek Sharma (7 off 8) early in the power play stage, but it didn’t deter him in putting the pressure on the opposition bowlers with his power hitting exploits. Alongside the captain Suryakumar Yadav, he stitched together a 66-run stand in double quick time, to take control of the Indian innings.
Following that, Sanju Samson had a yet another vital partnership of 77 runs with Tilak Varma, which was put together at a faster rate than the previous one with him going into overdrive. Ultimately, on the first ball of the 15th over of the Indian innings, Sanju Samson took a single on the bowling of Keshav Maharaj to complete his second consecutive T20I ton before being dismissed for 107 off 50, an inning which included seven fours and 10 maximums.
Here are the playing XIs of South Africa and India for the first T20I at the Kingsmead in Durban:
South Africa: Ryan Rickelton (wk), Aiden Markram (c), Tristan Stubbs, Heinrich Klaasen, David Miller, Partrick Kruger, Marco Jansen, Andile Simelane, Gerald Coetzee, Keshav Maharaj, Nqabayomzi Peter
India: Sanju Samson (wk), Abhishek Sharma, Suryakumar Yadav (c), Tilak Varma, Hardik Pandya, Rinku Singh, Axar Patel, Arshdeep Singh, Ravi Bishnoi, Avesh Khan, Varun Chakravarthy
