Match report: Maiden T20I fifer for Deepti Sharma as India manages 14-run win over South Africa<\/a><\/b><\/p>\nEven though the host had already sealed the series 3-1 with one game to spare, Deepti, a vital cog in India\u2019s maiden ODI World Cup-winning campaign, said unwavering self-belief through a prolonged slump helped her fight her way out of the hole.<\/p>\n
\u201cFirst is, I always keep believing in myself and second is line and length, which line I have to bowl. And basically today, I was more focused on my offspin ball other than the little faster one,\u201d said the spin-bowling all-rounder after her sterling show on Saturday.<\/p>\n
She said that approach gave her confidence, while adding the dew made it tricky for bowlers to judge their pace, but discussions within the bowling group helped them make the right adjustments.<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah, because it was a little dewish over here. So, we just had a conversation with the bowlers as well. Just bowl in the right areas and that will give you results,\u201d added Deepti, who had gone wicketless in the previous three T20Is here and managed just two runs, a lean run that had also contributed to India\u2019s heavy defeats.<\/p>\n
On the batting front, Deepti said she and Richa Ghosh (34 not out) had decided to preserve their wickets and bat deep, a plan that helped India post a competitive 185 for five through an unbroken 65-run stand.<\/p>\n
Deepti then capped the effort with a stellar bowling spell as India restricted the Proteas to 171 for nine in the chase.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think Richa batted well. She finished well. And we were just talking that we have to play till the 20th over and make sure we will have a good partnership. And then we finished well. So, we\u2019re calculating each and every over and that\u2019s how we played there,\u201d added the 28-year-old Deepti.<\/p>\n
She added that despite the series defeat, India would carry plenty of learnings into the T20 World Cup, along with renewed self-belief drawn from the way the team responded.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think a lot of positive from this series. And especially today\u2019s game gave us a lot of confidence going forward and future games as well. Whenever we play, we play as a team, as a bowling unit or as a batting unit. Same belief we have to keep going forward as well,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think, as a bowling unit and as a batting unit, both played really well (on Saturday).So, we will see then how we will do it (in the final game) and definitely will finish well as well,\u201d concluded Deepti.<\/p>\n
Published on Apr 26, 2026<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\n
Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"India all-rounder Deepti Sharma\u2019s breakout show against South Africa in the fourth T20I has provided a timely boost ahead of the Women\u2019s T20 World Cup, with the seasoned campaigner saying self-belief and tweaks to her bowling helped her snap a prolonged lean patch and return to form at the right time. Deepti had endured a…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":159547,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-159546","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/newslink360.space\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/HGxk4-pbgAAzR46.jpg","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pgnRh4-Fvk","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newslink360.space\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159546","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newslink360.space\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newslink360.space\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newslink360.space\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newslink360.space\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=159546"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newslink360.space\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159546\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newslink360.space\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/159547"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newslink360.space\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=159546"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newslink360.space\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=159546"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newslink360.space\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=159546"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}