Is it India's best T20I XI if Rinku isn't in it?

This is just the start of South Africa's home summer, but the pitch at St George's Park was sluggish in the first half, with the ball not coming on to the bat. Dale Steyn, the former South Africa quick and current bowling coach of Sunrisers Eastern Cape, who are based at Gqeberha in the SA20, noted on commentary that the ball doesn't travel too far at this coastal venue in comparison to at the Highveld. Plus, the straight boundaries on Tuesday were considerably bigger than the ones on the square.

But they weren't big enough for Rinku Singh, who manufactured his own power and even sent the ball soaring into the glass pane of the media box for an almighty six. He had damaged both the glass pane and South Africa's attack. In the penultimate over of the innings, bowled by Aiden Markram, Rinku dashed out of the crease, opened up his hips, and shanked the spinner high and far over his head. Rinku's shot was outstanding even on a day when his captain, world No. 1 T20I batter Suryakumar Yadav, played a number of his trick shots, including the supla.

There were other sparkling shots too from Rinku. Like the flat-batted wallop over point off a 120kph slower variation from Lizaad Williams. Like the open-faced dab the next ball, which was an on-pace delivery from Williams, to the right of point for another four.

Rinku had walked out to bat when India were 55 for 3 in the last over of the powerplay. Along with Suryakumar, he powered them to an above-par 180 for 7 in 19.3 overs before rain ended their innings. It might have been a match-winning total on another day, but on this day, the ball skidded on to the bat after the showers as South Africa hunted down a revised target of 152 in 15 overs.

He had originally struggled to come to grips with the pace - or lack thereof - on the St George's Park pitch. He failed to connect with reverse-sweeps and allrounder Andile Phehlukwayo gleaned enough seam movement to beat the outside edge. He then skewed Marco Jansen off the outside half over extra-cover. He was on 9 off 11 balls at one point. But all of this didn't prevent him from operating with high intent and power.

Rinku offered an aggressive response to 19 of the 39 balls he faced, hitting nine fours and two sixes. He finished with an unbeaten 68 off 39 balls at a strike rate just a shade under 175. Suryakumar was the only other Indian batter to strike at over 150 on this surface.

Rinku's approach was a departure from India's old, conservative style of T20 batting. Suryakumar is in awe of such an approach from India's next-gen. "The guys who I'm watching right now in T20s are very expressive and very fearless," Suryakumar had said in the lead-up to this series in South Africa. "They don't have a lot of fear of failure... whatever happens - if they do good or if they don't get runs on that given day - their attitude remains the same on and off the field. I think that balance is really important. And I've just told them to just enjoy this format, just be yourself, and just do the same things. You don't have to do anything different."

Tilak Varma and Jitesh Sharma, who were picked ahead of Shreyas Iyer and Ishan Kishan, also tried to bat with similar attacking enterprise, but weren't as efficient as Rinku and ended up holing out trying to clear the boundary. Rinku's overall T20I efficiency is even more sensational: he averages 82.66 and strikes at 183.70 after seven innings in 11 games.

While Rinku's firepower and left-handedness gives India's middle order a potent point of difference, he is yet to lock down his position for the T20 World Cup next year in the West Indies and the USA. If Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli and Hardik Pandya all return for the tournament, and Ravindra Jadeja continues to slot in at No. 7, Rinku could be squeezed out of the XI.

But if Rinku keeps whipping up innings like these in the four T20Is India have before the T20 World Cup - and at IPL 2024 - it will be incredibly hard to keep him out.