During a tumultuous innings – where the Proteas at times found themselves wanting – they managed to recuperate and regain enough composure to seal out their chase and win by five wickets in a thriller against India in Perth on Sunday.

The result was a big scalp for South Africa, who now cementtheir place at the top of Group 2 at the ongoing T20 World Cup in Australia, after maintaining their unbeaten run. 

They are still set to play another key match against Pakistan, before taking on Netherlands at the conclusion of their group fixtures.

The Proteas had to work hard and rough it out considerably for the golden two points they achieved against India, but the attitude and mental fortitude they displayed was something to behold, especially at an ICC event.

After 10 overs – the halfway point – South Africa were limping along on 40/2, having needed a further 93 runs for victory at the time. This seemed like a rather steep climb to scale, especially after their two inform batters, Quinton de Kock and RileeRossouw, were both picked off in just the second over.

The Indian bowlers, particularly Arshdeep Singh and Mohammad Shami, were bowling precise deliveries at fine lengths that had beaten SA’s top order on many occasions in the opening stanza.

But Aiden Markram (52) and David Miller (59*) then took the innings by the horns and managed to gain much-needed ascendency throughout the second half of their chase.

“[We had] a bit of luck,” chuckled Markram, who shook off some dense rust to make a pivotal breakthrough in the game that mattered most.

“We found it quite tricky – the ball was nipping around quite a bit – and obviously the extra bounce, we had expected. Sometimes you get the rub of the green and sometimes you don’t.

“At the end of the day you have to be grateful when you do get a bit of luck.”

Markram credited both bowling attacks on a day where it “was difficult to score” and which made “life pretty tough for us as batters”. SA’s own pace attack stood up firmly, which saw LungiNgidi earn a Player-of-the-Match performance after claiming sterling figures of 4/29.

The 28-year-old said generally they would have needed to “target someone” after struggling against India’s seamersinitially. That they did when they “took on” off-breaker Ravichandran Ashwin, who’d been smashed for 43 runs in 4 overs. 

India did the same with the bat when they picked out spinner Keshav Maharaj for 28 runs in 3 overs.

“That’s generally how the game would pan out when the seamers are difficult to get away,” Markram said. “It almost got to a stage when we had to target someone because they bowled so well for the first 10 overs.

“We expected them to take on Keshav, and they probably expected us to take on Ashwin as well, just because of the nature of the wicket. It gets to a stage when we had to pick someone – it could be anyone on any night – and sometimes you execute, sometimes you don’t.

“You pick those match-ups according to who you’re most comfortable against on the night. It was a discussion we had in our drinks break to pick one of the bowlers and commit to that.”

Miller was the star of the innings at the end of the day, after having hit the winning runs and scored a strike-rate of 128.26. Markram however steered the ship initially, and was the one who’d initiated aggressive batting. 

He got his 50 first-up and scored a strike-rate of 126.82, a spell which had wronged many doubters of him. 

“Every player goes through these form slumps. In a format like this you have to take risks and play a positive brand of cricket, and it certainly helps when your batters seem to be in form,” Markram said.

“Tonight I felt like I was far from being in form, but you get wickets like that and it’s about finding a way, I guess.”