NEW DELHI - South Africa ended India's 12-match winning streak at the T20 World Cup with a crushing 76-run win in Ahmedabad on Sunday in the opening Group 1 Super Eights match.
After a counter-attacking 63 by David Miller and some late hitting from Tristan Stubbs took South Africa to 187-7, the defending champions were all out for 111 in 18.5 overs, failing badly in their first chase of the tournament.
Left-arm quick Marco Jansen finished with 4-22, while left-arm spinner Keshav Maharaj took 3-24 as the South African bowlers exposed India's fragile batting line-up.
"Great performance. Very different type of wicket to what we've had here, so great to see the boys assess that pretty early and adapt their skills to execute their plans," said South Africa captain Aiden Markram.
"We're really pumped for the bowling group. They’ve been working hard, started the comp a bit tough, but the way they rocked up tonight was a great effort."
The magnitude of the defeat means India will take a poor net run rate forward and that could prove pivotal if their Super Eights group is tight.
Hot favourites to defend their crown on home soil, India will likely need to win their two remaining Super Eight games against Zimbabwe and the West Indies to have a chance of qualifying for the semi-finals.
"We bowled really well, but we could have batted a little better," said India captain Suryakumar Yadav.
"Sometimes you've got to think, if you're chasing 180-185, you can't win the game in the power play, but you might lose it.
"We lost too many wickets in the power play."
Both teams were unbeaten in the group phase and the game was a rematch of the 2024 T20 World Cup final in Barbados, which India won.