India recover, but then comes Klaasen

Until the last two overs of India's innings on Sunday, it seemed South Africa were set to continue their brief but charmed relationship with Cuttack's Barabati Stadium. The visitors had played there only once before - in a T20I in October 2015 - but their six-wicket win was India's only loss in their last nine completed games at the ground going back to January 2007.

Here we go again, the South Africans might have been thinking after 18 overs. India had dwindled to 118/6, and Dinesh Karthik had faced only 14 balls and Harshal Patel just four. Anrich Nortje and Dwaine Pretorius, who would bowl those last two overs, had taken 3/46 in the six overs they had sent down between them: an economy rate of 7.67 and a strike rate of 12.00.

The full house of 45,000 were restless with unease. India have played on 49 grounds at home. Only on nine of them do they have a better win/loss ratio than at the Barabati. But the national team had last visited the ground in December 2019 for an ODI against West Indies, and before that in December 2017. Were the crowd's lesser spotted guests to let them down? Only three of India's first 18 overs had yielded 10 or more runs each, and eight had gone for five or fewer each. Was something not much better than the