Markram, Ngidi fashion South Africa's handsome win

A dominant all-round performance defined South Africa's handsome 57-run win in their T20 World Cup opener against Canada at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad on Monday (February 9). The win was set up by captain Aiden Markram's flamboyant 59, before Lungi Ngidi did the star turn with the ball, returning figures of 4 for 31.

South Africa lost the toss but that was just about the only thing that didn't go their way. On a batting-friendly deck in Ahmedabad, Markram made hay, unleashing aesthetic strokes archetypal of his game. Quinton de Kock was surprisingly more sedate by his usual standards, even receiving a reprieve on five as Ansh Patel put down a fairly straightforward chance at short third-man. The southpaw then pounced on the left-arm spin of Saad Bin Zafar, although it was Markram who drove the initiative in the PowerPlay, with 66 runs coming in that phase for South Africa.

De Kock fell to his old nemesis - right-arm off-spin - as opposition skipper Dilpreet Bajwa castled him. Ryan Rickelton batted with a great sense of fluency, however, carrying the innings forward with Markram, who notched up a half-century at his end. A 17-run 11th over only signalled a huge total with Rickelton and Markram blowing Saad out of the water.

That's when a mini-wobble followed as Markram fell to an outstanding leaping catch by Dilon Heyliger by the long-on fence, post which Rickelton and Dewald Brevis fell in quick succession. Leggie Ansh accounted for each of these wickets, just leaving the door slightly ajar for Canada to mount a fightback.

That wasn't to be the case, however, as Tristan Stubbs and David Miller stabilised the innings before going all out in attack in the death overs. A whopping 47 runs came off the last three overs as Stubbs tore into Jaskarandeep Singh, who bore the brunt of this onslaught. Three maximums were scored in the final over, powering South Africa to the highest total yet of this T20 World Cup of 213 for 4.

Canada's chase could not have got off to a worse start as Bajwa departed first ball having withdrawn his bat too late despite looking to let it go, edging it to wicket-keeper de Kock. Ngidi, who struck gold off the first delivery, made merry in the third over with his hard lengths, sending both Yuvraj Samra and Nicholas Kirton back in the same over to leave the Canadians in disarray. Kagiso Rabada then flattened Shreyas Movva's off stump shortly after as Canada lost a fourth wicket inside the PowerPlay.

Navneet Dhaliwal put up a strong vigil in the company of Harsh Thaker, with the duo managing a partnership of 69 for the fifth wicket. Such was the equation, however, that the asking rate continued to mount steeply despite Dhaliwal and Thaker's best efforts to not throw the towel in too early. It was Ngidi who returned to break that vigil, bagging his fourth wicket in the form of Thaker shortly after which Dhaliwal raised his half-century. A double-strike from Marco Jansen landed further dents in an already lost cause though, with Canada just going through the motions thereafter.

Dhaliwal eventually fell off the first ball of the final over as Corbin Bosch got on the board. The all-rounder played his part to perfection with returns of 1/27, with left-arm spinner Keshav Maharaj also doing a neat job of his own to cap off a massive win for the 2024 finalists.

Brief Scores: South Africa 213/4 in 20 overs (Aiden Markram 59, David Miller 39*, Ansh Patel 3-31) beat Canada 156/8 in 20 overs (Navneet Dhaliwal 64, Lungi Ngidi 4-31, Marco Jansen 2-30) by 57 runs.