India's top 5 run-scorers in T20Is vs South Africa ft. Virat Kohli and Dinesh Karthik

Sixteen years after MS Dhoni led a young team of comparative nobodies to the inaugural T20 World Cup title in South Africa, India come to Proteas' land for a three-match T20I series with an abundance of T20 talent and nowhere to put it.

The bowling lineup is all but sorted because it doesn't have the issue of format mixing. Even if India plays the same attack that featured in the World Cup, they'd be fine. But batting is a different beast. In it, you can't afford to pick the wrong balance between experience and T20 specialty and form.

Ahead of the series that starts Sunday, let's examine the five batters who have been the most successful against South Africa in the format.

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#5 Dinesh Karthik

Wicketkeeper-batter Dinesh Karthik featured in the first ever India-South Africa T20I in December 2006 and the latest in October 2022. His role remained almost the same over the years: bat in the middle-and-low-order and finish games.

In 13 games (the joint second-most) against South Africa, he scored 221 runs at 31.57, striking at 144.44. India played as many as nine T20Is against the Proteas in 2022 - the year Karthik made his return to the T20I side after solid performances in the IPL - and the 'keeper batter did decently in most of them.

His best performance was a 27-ball 55 in Rajkot where India put up 169/6 on the board and shot the opponents down for just 87. Karthik's poor showing in the 2022 T20 World Cup led to him being dropped from the team.

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#4 Shikhar Dhawan

Left-handed opener Shikhar Dhawan played seven matches against South Africa in his slightly underwhelming T20I career for India. He scored 233 runs at an average of 33.28 and a strike rate of 141.21. This only included one half-century but a couple of good 40s.

His best knock against the Proteas came in Johannesburg in the first match of a bilateral series in 2018. In India's brilliant first innings score of 203/5, he top-scored with a 39-ball 72, one of his quickest 50-plus scores in international cricket.

Dhawan played his last T20I in 2021 but remained in contention for the T20I team for some more time due to his consistent IPL showings. But he was eventually replaced by younger and more fearless talents in Yashasvi Jaiswal, Shubman Gill, and Ruturaj Gaikwad.

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#3 Virat Kohli

Virat Kohli's T20I career against South Africa is mostly remembered for one innings - the 2014 T20 World Cup semi-final at Mirpur where Dhoni allowed him to hit the winning runs in appreciation of his match-winning 44-ball 72.

That was his best knock against the Proteas. Overall, he has 318 runs against them at an average of 35.33 and a strike rate of 134.17. His only other half-century against them was also an unbeaten 72 - against Mohali in 2016.

Kohli has taken a rest from the upcoming T20Is but whether or not he'll return to the team is still in doubt. He's one of the best batters in the format India has ever produced but, like with Dhawan, some younger players have done better than him in the IPL and have done well for India recently.

After that 72-run knock in the semi-final against South Africa, Kohli was praised for not looking for a boundary for the first quarter of his innings but instead relying on singles and doubles to avoid dot ball pressure before exploding.

He still brings the same to the table. It's on selectors to decide whether or not they still need it for 2024.

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#2 Suresh Raina

One of India's greatest T20 cricketers, Suresh Raina often did well against South Africa during his 66-match T20I career. In 12 matches against the Proteas, he scored 339 runs at 33.90 and a strike rate of 148.03.

South Africa witnessed India's first-ever T20I century from Raina's bat at Gros Islet in 2010. On a difficult pitch, circled by big boundaries, he started sluggishly, survived a catch off a no-ball and a couple of close run-out attempts to hit a magnificent 60-ball 101. It was only the third T20I century at the time.

He didn't go past the 50-run mark against South Africa after that but played a few good 30s and 40s till 2018, before playing his last international match later in the year.

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#1 Rohit Sharma

Rohit Sharma is clear as India's leading run-scorer against South Africa in T20Is. In 17 appearances (the most for the country), he has 420 runs, including a century and two fifties, at an average of 28 and a strike rate of 129.23.

His first match against South Africa came in the 2007 T20 World Cup which was also his second international match in the format. He scored a good 40-ball 50 from number five that helped India win by 37 runs.

In 2015, Rohit scored a brilliant 66-ball 106 against the Proteas in Dharamshala, which was only the second T20I century for the Men in Blue after Raina. Although he scored three more T20I tons for the country, Rohit's performances against South Africa dipped and he crossed 25 only once in the next 10 innings.

Like Kohli, he also opted to rest for the upcoming series but his position for the 2024 T20 World Cup remains in doubt due to his poor recent T20I form.