South Africa crushed India in the first game of the five-match T20I series by seven wickets and five balls and Rassie van der Dussen has credited the Indian Premier League (IPL) for it. He said although he didn't get a surplus chance to play but he plucked out ideas from the games about the conditions in India, and about the bowlers' techniques.
Notably, Dussen was the top scorer from South Africa's end and added 75 runs from 46 balls. Chasing a target of 212 runs, Proteas' openers departed without giving a solid start to them, however, Dussen, alongside David Miller settled the things. To note that Miller's terrific inning included 64 runs from 31 balls and both the batters stayed not out.
Describing how IPL has played a crucial role in their victory over India at the Arun Jaitley Stadium, Dussen stated,
“Definitely (IPL has helped). I watched a lot of IPL games and did not get much of an opportunity to play, but I had a pretty good idea of what their bowlers would do and the conditions. Indian conditions are different from what we have in South Africa. I spent two months here, been in these conditions, been in the heat, so had acclimatized to that, and that goes for everyone,”
Dussen was visibly struggling as he was dropped by Shreyas Iyer on 29 runs that came on 30 balls. Later, he smoked 45 runs from the next 15 balls and stated that he wanted to India pay. He blew many pacers of the hosts, especially Harshal Patel but believes yet he is one of the best slower bowlers.
“(He’s) got such a good slower ball. I think the end he bowled from played into my hands because of the short boundary. It’s a very tough ball to hit. He gets a lot of energy in it, gets a lot of dip on it, but again he’s only human. You know that at some stage he is going to miss. As a batter you’ve just got to stay strong and stay patient over those balls that he bowls so well,”
