India clinched the T20I series against South Africa by 3-1 after winning the fifth and final T20I at the Narendra Modi Stadium, Ahmedabad. The Men in Blue have ended the year with another series win.
India registered another consecutive T20I series win as the Men in Blue ended the year strongly with a win in the fifth T20I against South Africa on Friday, December 19.
The Men in Blue defended 231 in the fifth and final T20I of the series against the Proteas at the Narendra Modi Stadium, Ahmedabad, to complete a 3-1 series win.
This is India’s seventh consecutive bilateral T20I series win since the T20 World Cup 2024. They have played in seven and have won all eight of them.
Hardik, Tilak put up show with bat
Hardik Pandya and Tilak Varma put up a show with the bat in Ahmedabad. While Abhishek Sharma and Sanju Samson – playing for the injured Shubman Gill – had got India off to a strong start with their 63-run stand for the opening wicket, Hardik and Tilal played the most impactful knocks.
Tilak scored 73 from 42 balls, while Hardik was even more aggressive as the all-rounder smacked 63 from just 25 balls at a strike rate of 252.
Hardik slammed the second-fastest fifty for India in T20Is as he got to the milestone off just 16 balls, four behind the all-time record of Yuvraj Singh.
Fastest fifties for India in T20Is (in balls):
12 – Yuvraj Singh vs ENG, Durban, 2007 WC
16 – Hardik Pandya vs SA, Ahmedabad, 2025*
17 – Abhishek Sharma vs ENG, Wankhede, 2025
18 – KL Rahul vs SCO, Dubai, 2021
18 – Suryakumar Yadav vs SA, Guwahati, 2022
Varun, Bumrah star with ball
While it was the pair of Hardik and Tilak with their 105-run stand, it was Varun Chakravarthy and Jasprit Bumrah who were the biggest stars with the ball.
Varun was in particular brilliant with the ball, although he gave away a few more runs than he would have wanted. The mystery spinner took four wickets in his four overs for 53 runs, which included two back-to-back wickets in the 13th over that played a major part in South Africa’s downfall.
While Chakravarthy took four, Bumrah got the very important wicket of Quinton de Kock, who was going so well with his 65. The pace talisman removed Marco Jansen later and had brilliant figures of 2/17 in his four overs.
With this, India have ended the year with another T20I series win. They last lost a T20I series way back in August 2023. India would now hope to keep this run going as they face New Zealand in a white-ball series in January next year before the T20 World Cup title defence kicks in.