Five for Sixteen, Then Dilruksha Once More: South Korea Win by Eight Wickets and Seal the Series

The first game of a double-header is supposed to be the one where both sides are still fresh, still feeling their way in. Indonesia did not get that luxury. South Korea chose to field at 10 in the morning at Yeonhui, and within 3.2 overs Alam Nakash had removed both openers with Indonesia on 9. From there the innings never found its feet.

Aamir Lal did the rest. Four overs, 16 runs, five wickets, and Indonesia were bowled out for 99 off the last ball of their 20 overs. Balage Dilruksha then made 64 not out from 42 balls, and South Korea knocked off the runs in 13.3 overs. South Korea won by 8 wickets with 39 balls remaining and lead the four-match series 3-0 with one game still to play that afternoon. The series was theirs before the afternoon game had begun.

For two days Aamir Lal had been the bowler who took the air out of Indonesia's innings — 2 for 15 in the first match, 3 for 11 in the second. In the third, he took the wickets as well. Dharma Kesuma, Kavin Chaddha, Gede Arta (caught and bowled), Ahmad Ramdoni and Ketut Artawan: five wickets — four caught, one bowled — at an economy rate of four an over. Indonesia went from 31 for 2 in the eighth over to 68 for 8 in the sixteenth, and Lal's spell sat right in the middle of that slide.

It was a performance built on a good start from someone else. Alam Nakash bowled Gede Priandana and trapped Rohit Sharma lbw inside the first four overs, and with Indonesia at 9 for 2, the pressure was on before Lal had bowled a ball. Nakash finished with 2 for 12, took the catch that removed Kesuma, and then walked out to make 17 not out from 13 at the finish. That is a full morning's work.

The rest of the attack simply denied Indonesia any release. Chamith Ranasinghe's two overs cost 7, Sameera Maduranga's two cost 9 with a wicket, Areeb Khalid's two cost 9. Indonesia's whole innings produced one four and one six. In a twenty-over game, two boundaries is not a scoring rate; it is a siege.

The chase did lose two wickets — Sageer Ahmad lbw to Gamantika for 5 at 33 for 1, Daham Madampage caught off Chaddha for 5 at 59 for 2 — but neither mattered much while Dilruksha was there. He and Nakash added 43 without being parted, and the winning runs came with six and a half overs unused.

Kadek Gamantika deserves better than to be a footnote in a heavy defeat. He came in with the innings already in trouble and was still there at the end, 37 not out from 38 balls — more than a third of the total. Around him, wickets fell at 38, 42, 56, 62 and 68. He kept going, and when Indonesia's tail had gone he had at least pushed them as close to 100 as they would get.

The trouble is that no one stayed with him. Chaddha's 18 from 15, with Indonesia's only six, was the next-best score. Of the other nine batters, nobody reached double figures. Gede Priandana was bowled for 3. Kesuma's 7 took 18 balls. Indonesia faced all 120 deliveries and found the boundary twice.

With the ball, Gamantika was again the steadiest — four overs for 15 and the wicket of Sageer. Chaddha took the other. But with 99 on the board, there was no margin to defend, and Dilruksha does not need much margin to work with.

An early start, and a scorecard that again favoured bowlers who attacked the stumps: four of Indonesia's ten wickets were bowled and one more was lbw. Indonesia scored at 4.95 an over across their 20; South Korea scored at 7.56 across their 13.3, hitting eight fours and four sixes to Indonesia's one of each. The difference, as on the previous two days, was less about the surface than about who could stay in long enough to make it count.

A five-wicket haul in a T20I is a rare thing, and Aamir Lal's 5 for 16 came on the morning his side sealed the series. Across three matches he has now bowled 12 overs, conceded 42 runs and taken 10 wickets. Those are not numbers that come from luck; they come from a bowler who has worked out what the opposition can and cannot do.

And then there is Dilruksha. Sixty-four not out from 42 balls, seven fours and three sixes, at a strike rate a shade above 152. It follows 70 not out and 73 not out. Three innings, 207 runs from 147 balls, and Indonesia have still not dismissed him. He made 64 of South Korea's 102 here. Some batters chase targets; Dilruksha, this week, has simply been walking them home.

We did not publish a preview for this match. Our only preview of the series made Indonesia the favourites, and that call has now been beaten three times out of three. The series is decided, and it has been decided by the side we did not back.

The fourth and final T20I followed the same afternoon at Yeonhui. For South Korea, it was a chance to make it a clean sweep; for Indonesia, a last chance to take something home from Incheon. The question for the tourists was the one that had followed them all series: whether anyone in the middle order could stay with the one batter who was getting in — and whether anyone could find a way to get Dilruksha out.