India’s blistering 78/2 in powerplay made difference, says Reeza Hendricks

India notched up their fifth consecutive T20I win by a margin of 28 runs over the South Africans on Sunday. India who have now won seven of their last eight matches against the Proteas in the rainbow nation across all formats, started the first T20I with an aggressive batting display scoring 78 runs in the Powerplay overs. Reeza Hendricks said that India’s 78/2 in the first six overs of the match resulted in yet another loss for the Proteas.

“He (Bhuvneshwar) was just consistent in his areas, which was pretty much giving us nothing to score off. So we had to be happy with the ones and twos at that time,” said Hendricks, who scored 70 off 50 balls. “They just executed their plans well and kept it very simple. That’s pretty much it, compared to what we did,” Hendricks added.

“He (Bhuvneshwar) was just consistent in his areas, which was pretty much giving us nothing to score off. So we had to be happy with the ones and twos at that time,” said “Conditions were very good for batting. But Indians bowled really well. So I started slowly and then I had to get myself in and like I said, take it as deep as possible, with the wickets falling around. I managed to do that but would have loved to see the team home,” said the 28-year-old.

“As an opening batsman, we obviously try to get a start, try and capitalize on the first six and then take it deep as possible. They obviously bowled well, we lost a few wickets so that meant obviously we had to stabilize the innings and build a few partnerships and try to take it as deep as possible.”