Centurion: South Africa's right-hand batter Marco Jansen slammed the fastest fifty against India in the shortest format of the game during the third T20I of the four-match series at the SuperSport Park on Wednesday.
Jansen played a marvellous innings of 54 runs off just 17 balls which was laced with five maximums and four boundaries in his innings at a whopping strike rate of 317.65.
In the Centurion T20I, the 24-year-old completed his fifty in just 16 balls and became the quickest one to do so. Earlier, this record was made by Australia's all-rounder Cameron Green who achieved it in just 19 balls which came during the 2022 series in Hyderabad
Other than the two players, there are more players to do the same thing in this format. West Indies Johnson Charles (20 balls) did it in 2016 at Lauderhill and Sri Lanka's Dasun Shanaka (20 balls) did it in 2023 at Pune.
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With this fifty, Jansen also became the second-fastest player to score a T20I half-century for the Proteas team after left-hand batter Quinton De Kock who did it 15 balls against West Indies at Centurion only in 2023.
Recapping the 3rd T20I of the series, South Africa won the toss and decided to field. Abhishek Sharma (50 runs from 25 balls, 3 fours and 5 sixes) and Tilak Varma (107* runs from 56 balls, 8 fours and 7 sixes) powered India to 219/6 in the first innings. Other batters failed to shine with the bat.
Andile Simelane and Keshav Maharaj led the Proteas bowling attack and bagged two wickets each in their respective spell.
During the run chase, Heinrich Klaasen (41 runs from 22 balls, 1 four and 4 sixes) and Marco Jansen (54 runs from 17 balls, 4 fours and 5 sixes) kept the Proteas in the game. But with the help of Arshdeep, India prevailed in the end.
Arshdeep did the job both with the new ball and in the death overs as he picked up three crucial wickets and gave 37 runs in his four-over spell. Varun Chakaravarthy bagged two wickets in his four-over spell.
—ANI