If Varun bowls a bad ball, put it away: Miller

AHMEDABAD: “India are beatable.” This was David Miller’s calm announcement after South Africa handed India their first defeat in 12 T20 World Cup matches. Miller’s own counter-attack with the bat on Sunday was a lesson in how to negotiate mystery spinner Varun Chakravarthy.

India never really recovered after Miller and Dewald Brevis tore apart Chakravarthy. For South Africa, there was only one gameplan — don’t let Chakravarthy dominate even if the score is 20/3.



Chakravarthy finished with figures of 1/47 from his four overs, with Miller falling in his last over. Even Tristan Stubbs tonked him over the head for six.

“He’s a world-class bowler and he has had huge success in the IPL and international cricket. For us, it was not like in the past, where we’ve been quite tentative against him. It’s just about really making sure that if he bowls a bad ball, we’ve got to put it away,” Miller said.

“There was a little bit more intent. It wasn’t spinning too much, so you could kind of trust the line. We then felt, we’ve got to take Chakravarthy down because he is a threat to every team that he play against. It was definitely something that we did speak about,” he added.


Get the latest ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2026 updates, including the full schedule, teams, live scores, points table, and key series stats such as top run-scorers and wicket-takers.