Last Match between India and South Africa was good for batting, almost Paradise for batsmen as India boost 203 runs for 5 wicket on the board with Shikhar Dhawan leading the way with a 39-ball 72 runs. In reply, India used the slower deliveries well to eventually restrict the hosts South Africa to 175 runs for 9. Bhuvneshwar admitted that India executed their plans of bowling a lot of slower deliveries to good effect. "Just like how you prepare your strategy before going into any game, how to bowl, what lengths to bowl, what line to stick to, let's stick to this length, let's bowl a bit back of length, those kind of things, the important thing is how you mix your deliveries according to the wicket," he noted.

In recent times, apart from skipper Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma to an extent, it is Bhuvneshwar Kumar on the bowling front that has become a vital cog in both limited-overs and Test cricket, especially with India playing overseas. The pacer, who was rested for the final ODI against South Africa, made a return for the first T20I in which he picked up five wickets to set up India's comfortable 28-run win.

Brief Scores: India 203/5 in 20 overs (Shikhar Dhawan 72, Manish Pandey 29*; Junior Dala 2-47) beats South Africa 175/9 in 20 overs (Reeza Hendricks 70, Farhaan Behardien 39; Bhuvneshwar Kumar 5-24) by 28 runs