South Africa halted Team India’s winning campaign by registering a seven-wicket win in the five-match T20I series. The Rishabh Pant-led side missed out on creating history. Batting first after losing the toss, Team India batted brilliantly and scored 211 runs for 4 wickets in 20 overs. South Africa achieved this target in 19.1 overs for the loss of 3 wickets. Eight months later, Team India had to face defeat in the T20 match.
Earlier on February 27, India registered their 12th consecutive win in T20 Internationals in the third and final match of the series against Sri Lanka. With this win, the Rohit Sharma-led side equaled the record held by Afghanistan and Romania. Afghanistan was the first team to win 12 matches in a row. He did this feat between February 2018 and September 2019. On the other hand, Romania recorded 12 consecutive wins between October 2020 and September 2012.
India’s impressive performance started with last year’s T20 World Cup match against Afghanistan. The team had earlier suffered defeats against Pakistan and New Zealand and failed to qualify for the semi-finals. After this the team performed brilliantly in T20 cricket. Won 12 consecutive T20 matches between 3 November 2021 to 9 June 2022.
Rohit Sharma got the captaincy – After the T20 World Cup last year, Virat Kohli stepped down from the captaincy and Rohit Sharma got the responsibility of leading the team. The Man in Blue led by the opener batsman made a clean sweep of three teams. The team defeated New Zealand, West Indies and Sri Lanka 3-0 in the home series.
Pant doing the captaincy in the series against Africa- Players like Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli and Jasprit Bumrah were rested in the series against South Africa. The team’s leadership was handed over to KL Rahul, but just a day before the first T20, he was injured and ruled out of the series. After this, Rishabh Pant was given the command of the team and Hardik Pandya was made the vice-captain.