The situation looked grim at around 10:30 pm in Ahmedabad. A 100,000 hearts were broken again as India succumbed to yet another World Cup defeat at the Narendra Modi Stadium. The Indian cricket fan’s ‘khada hu aaj bhi yahi’ moment had arrived once again — twice in a little over two years, at the very same venue.
Most walked out for about half a kilometre, out to the main road, and took an auto home. The others — the travelling fans — checked themselves into a restaurant and hoped for a warm meal at the end of a disappointing night. Once the food came to the table, the dinner was quiet. Hands moved slower than usual, weighed down by the defeat.
The walk out of the stadium felt longer than usual. Conversations were short. Some did not speak at all.
But why does it hurt so much in Ahmedabad? It is, after all, just a cricket match.
Locals often say that Ahmedabad does not have much entertainment for the younger generation beyond cricket. There are no night clubs, no alcohol, and not much else going on in the city once the sun goes down. Cricket is what binds the evenings here. And when a defeat like that happens — especially on a stage like this — it lingers.
India were beaten by South Africa on Sunday evening. A loss by 76 runs, after an unbeaten run in the tournament, not only came as a shock but also felt a little too harsh on a team that had done so well in the lead-up to the tournament.
Yet, if one looked closely, the cracks had been visible before the match.
At India Today, we had written about how the Indian team was living two lives. One that was bullish about what they could achieve, and the other that felt quietly bogged down by pressure — that the law of averages would catch up to them sooner or later.
And the law of averages did catch up.
But not because of one or two bad moments in the Indian camp. Not because of luck suddenly turning its face away.
It was because South Africa had done their homework. Meticulously. Quietly.
They had plotted India’s downfall right under their noses at the Narendra Modi Stadium.
HOW SOUTH AFRICA PLOTTED INDIA’S DOWNFALL
A day before the match, only four South African players turned up for training. It was quite surprising, considering that was the only night training session they had before the match. From the outside, it looked casual. Almost relaxed.
But the reality was that, by then, South Africa had already prepared. Fully prepared.
Two days before the match, while most preferred to stay indoors, South Africa practiced in the sweltering afternoon heat. It was not a full training session, but the entire Protean bowling unit checked into the ground at 2 pm sharp. The sun was unforgiving. The conditions were taxing. But the bowling group knew that they had to put in the hard yards when no one was around to watch them.
Captain Aiden Markram was the first to take the ball and started bowling to assistant coach Albie Morkel in the nets.
Markram searched for a specific delivery — one that would pitch back of a length and zip into the stumps of a left-hander. He occasionally tried his stock ball too, floating it up slightly, hoping to draw the left-hander into playing against the spin.
He repeated it. Again and again.
On Sunday evening, rehearsal met reality.
Just like in the nets, Markram started South Africa’s bowling innings. And just as he visualised, he was able to draw Ishan Kishan into a false shot — continuing India’s now-familiar trend of one of their openers being dismissed for 0.
Markram was not greedy. He knew he had executed his role. And once that role was done, he did not bring himself back into the attack.
It was precise. It was calculated. It was enough.
VARYING PACE VS INDIA BECOMES KEY
Once Markram was done, South Africa executed the other part of their plan.
Pacers like Lungi Ngidi had already used the nets to practice their slower balls. Ngidi, known for his ability to hit a hard length at pace, swallowed his ego and prepared for a different role, which was not about speed, but about deception.
On Sunday, Ngidi’s first ball was his stock delivery, sent down at full pace. From there, he began to mix it up — one slower ball after the other — making life increasingly uncomfortable for the Indian batters.
The surface did not allow stroke-making to flow freely. And South Africa ensured that India never found rhythm.
What perhaps came slightly out of the syllabus was Marco Jansen, who did not train as extensively across those two days. But Jansen’s towering frame and large hands give him a natural advantage in gripping the ball.
Against India, he bowled a knuckle ball. On top of that, he bowled it like a cutter.
The delivery turned out to be too good for an out-of-form Abhishek Sharma, who skied the ball and ended up handing a catch to Corbin Bosch in the outfield.
And Bosch’s role was not limited to that moment either.
The fast bowler, with the ability to bowl a heavy ball, picked up the wickets of Washington Sundar and Suryakumar Yadav. He kept his deliveries short of a length, varied his pace between the 140s and the 120s, and ensured that the batters were in a constant dilemma — never fully sure whether to commit to their shots.
Once the first four wickets fell for 43 runs, the contest had tilted sharply.
KESHAV MAHARAJ’S DECISIVE BLOW
From there, South Africa did not need magic. They only needed discipline. They needed to bowl defensively enough to make their 187-run total seem larger than it actually was for the batters at the back end of India’s line-up.
And this is where Keshav Maharaj played a decisive role.
In the nets, Maharaj had worked with only two kinds of deliveries. One was his stock ball — which he would usually loop up to the batter, varying his flight and arc. The other was flatter and quicker, aimed at keeping the ball away from the batter’s hitting arc.
Against India’s spin hitters — Shivam Dube, Hardik Pandya, and Rinku Singh — Maharaj initially conceded 22 runs in his first two overs.
It looked, briefly, like the plan might falter. But plans are not abandoned after one spell.
Maharaj returned in the 15th over.
And he struck thrice.
Hardik Pandya, Rinku Singh, and Arshdeep Singh were his victims, as Shivam Dube watched on from the other end.
Before that over, India needed 102 runs from six overs with five wickets in hand. The equation was steep, but not impossible.
After Maharaj’s over, India needed 100 runs with two wickets remaining.
The match was done!
The ball that did the damage? Flatter. Just short of a length. Angled away from the hitting arc. All three Indian batters tried to clear the ropes in that over. All three failed.
And each took the long walk back under the ring of fire that hosted 100,000 Indian fans in Ahmedabad on Sunday.
THE LONG WALK BACK FROM THE STADIUM
As I walked back to my hotel, towards Sabarmati Ashram, the feeling of heaviness was palpable in the air.
In sharp contrast to only a few hours earlier, there was no buzz in Ahmedabad. The energy had drained out with the result.
Locals did not want to talk cricket at all.
The kebab and biryani shops on the way out of the stadium remained empty. No one was interested in the street-side stalls that still had a few India jerseys left in stock.
Yes, the vendors selling water bottles had a good payday. The ICC and the Gujarat Cricket Association had failed to restock free water in the stands. People were thirsty. They gulped down as much as they could at the time.
But the larger thirst — for a World Cup night to remember in Ahmedabad — remained unquenched.
As India move on from Ahmedabad, reality has struck. The team is beatable. The pitches in the T20 World Cup 2026 are not going to offer 300 runs. There is no escaping that.
The 76-run loss meant that India took a significant hit to their Net Run Rate — -3.800, to be exact.
If luck goes against India and this group somehow becomes a tie, they will be in trouble.
Not because they had a bad day, but because South Africa plotted their downfall right under their eyes, and India, living in their own world did not even see it happening.
When the lights came on, and the noise rose, and 100,000 people believed, South Africa simply executed what they had already seen happen in the nets.
As Ahmedabad walked home quietly on Sunday night, South Africa must have been glad to have walked through their script two days earlier.
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