IND vs SA | Intelligence, skill, and heart: How Arshdeep Singh took out Reeza Hendricks to make stunning comeback

Arshdeep Singh

The left-arm white-ball specialist had a bad outing in Mullanpur but roared back with the new ball in Dharamshala to steer India to 2-1 series lead against South Africa.

Arshdeep Singh is perhaps the most specialist white-ball bowler India has had of late. He doesn’t have searing pace nor crazy swing, but yet delivers time and again, with his crafty brain work.

There are bound to be ups and downs; this series saw a particularly nasty downer on his home ground in Mullanpur this week. Leaking 54 runs in his four overs with a relentless spray of wides that was likely key in South Africa putting up the 200+ total. But with his new-ball heroics in Dharamshala on Sunday, he showed that bouncing back from those setbacks takes more than just mental resilience. It requires a mastery of craft that bowlers, for whom the margin for error is so much greater, need to be developed with painstaking discipline and tactical acumen.