Thiruvananthapuram

Arshdeep Singh's three-wicket haul followed by Suryakumar Yadav 50 not out and KL Rahul's unbeaten knock of 51 runs helped India defeat South Africa by eight wickets in the first match of the three-match T20I series on Wednesday.

Chasing a target of 107, India got off to a bad start as they lost their opening batter Rohit Sharma on two ball duck in Kagiso Rabada's first over.

Kohli too could not do much as he went back to the pavilion after scoring just three runs, caught behind off an Anrich Nortje delivery.

Suryakumar Yadav came in and hammered Nortje for back-to-back two sixes in the 7th over of the innings.

After 10 overs India's score read 47/2. Suryakumar along with KL Rahul played a sensible knock while gathering boundaries at regular intervals.

India needed six runs in 24 balls, and Suryakumar brought up his half-century in 33 deliveries.

With a help of a six on the fourth delivery of the 17th over, KL Rahul also brought up his fifty and took India to an eight wickets victory over the Proteas.

Earlier, Arshdeep Singh's three and Deepak Chahar's two-wicket haul followed by Harshal Patel's late blows helped India restrict South Africa to 106/8.

For South Africa, Keshav Maharaj scored the highest 41 runs while Aiden Markram played a knock of 25 runs.

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The next match of the series will be played on Sunday in Guwahati.