Thursday sees South Africa continue its 2025 tour of India with a T20 in Chandigarh. This is the second of five T20s, with the next three all played in different cities, including Lucknow and Ahmedabad.
These white-ball matches are key, as they serve as preparation for both teams ahead of the 2026 T20 World Cup, which will be played on many of the same pitches in February.
Here is a look ahead at the contest.
India VS South Africa 2nd T20 Venue: New Chandigarh
India VS South Africa 2nd T20 Date: Thursday, December 11
India VS South Africa 2nd T20 Odds:
History
This tour has seen mixed success for the Proteas.
The Test squad swept India 2-0 with victories in Kolkata by 30 runs and a 408-run thrashing in Guwahati. The pounding set a new record Test defeat for India by number of runs, with Player of the Match Marco Jansen and spin sensation Simon Harmer skittling the hosts for 201 in their first innings and 140 in the second.
The white-ball squad looked to follow the lead of the reigning World Test Series Champions, but they fell to a 2-1 series defeat in the ODIs.
The first T20 also went the way of the host nation. South Africa held India to 175/6 after putting them in to bat. It seemed a reachable target, but that was before the Proteas put together the worst innings in their T20 history.
South Africa was bowled out for 74 inside 13 overs. Four Indian bowlers each took two wickets, with Axar Patel taking his two for just seven runs. Seven Proteas batsmen failed to score more than five runs, including opener Quinton de Kock, who lost his wicket to Arshdeep Singh for a duck.
India
India won the first match by 101 runs, so they are unlikely to make any changes to the side that was dominant in Cuttack.
Player of the Match was the returning Hardik Pandya, who scored an unbeaten 59 from just 28 balls after missing two months through injury. His powerful batting display came at the right time, steadying the ship for India as they were wobbling at 78-4.
It was a display that showed the strength of this Indian side. Even when losing wickets early, they have a host of game-changing options in their ranks. A bowling unit has to be excellent for all 20 overs against them, because at any time, a middle-order batter can get hot and blow a game wide open.
South Africa
It feels like the Proteas have to write Tuesday off as a bad day at the office. This is still a strong team; they just faced an India squad with on-point bowling while playing enough poor shots to give the fielders chances.
The bowling needs to get more out of Keshav Laharaj and Anrich Nortje, who were both expensive. Lungi Ngidi was the pick with the ball, taking three wickets with his overs of work.
Best Bets
This ground has never hosted a T20 international, and IPL scores are all over the place. It is a wicket that seems to prefer pace, so I like Ashdeep Singh at 41/10 to be India’s best bowler on Thursday.
