IND vs SA 1st T20 Live Score: South Africa finish at 106/8 after 20 overs

“Dei Ashwin! Thooki podu-ra, wicket vizhum da! Dei enda flat aa podurey!” Krishnamachari Srikkanth’s desperate pleas in Ashwin’s last over on Star Sports was much fun. First the translation: “Aswhin, toss it up, you will get a wicket, oi! Why are you bowling flat?!”

Ashwin had started that over with figures of 6 runs from 3 tight overs. Srikkanth offered him praise for that before saying now it’s the time to go for a wicket. The batsmen, he judged, weren’t going to play any big shots with Ashwin’s current lines. They didn’t. He kept cajoling Ashwin.. “Dei! Can’t you hear me?!” Ashwin kept slipping his quickish carrom balls to Keshav Maharaj and Srikkanth was hopeful when the left-hander Wayne Parnell came on strike for the last few balls. But nope, Ashwin hit the leg and middle line, and Parnell kept nudging them away.

When his co-commentator asked for a reason why he thinks Ashwin is bowling that way this over, Srikkanth wouldn’t hold back. “He is playing after a long time.. he probably thinks it’s better to be safe, economical. And of course he is making his come back , I can understand he is trying to clawing his way back.. Just the last over I thought he could have gone for the wicket,” Srikkanth said.

And when Axar Patel lured Parnell into holing out at deep midwicket, Srikkanth piped up again, “that’s what Ashwin could have done in that last over”.

He went on to suggest India should pick all three spinners for the first game of the T20 World Cup against Pakistan in Melbourne. “I would play Axar, Ashwin, and Chahal. Have Hardik as third seamer and the sixth bowler.”