India needed 124 to win at Eden Gardens and were bowled out for 93. That is the number the whole of this fixture now hangs on, and it is the reason any india national cricket team vs south africa national cricket team match scorecard from the last two years reads so strangely: the same India side that has beaten South Africa in four of their last six Twenty20 meetings could not chase down 124 at home.
Simon Harmer took four wickets in each innings of that Test. Eight days later at Guwahati he took six more, and India lost by 408 runs, the heaviest defeat by runs in their Test history. Harmer finished the two matches with seventeen wickets and the player of the series award.
What follows is every completed innings between the two sides from the 2024 T20 World Cup final to the Super 8 meeting of February 2026, with the batting and bowling figures that decided each one. The Eastern Herald keeps a separate dated timeline of the same period for readers who want the chronology rather than the numbers.
India vs South Africa head to head
Eleven completed internationals. India have won six, South Africa five, and the split by format is the entire story.
| Format | Played | India | South Africa | Series and tournament outcomes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tests | 2 | 0 | 2 | South Africa won the November 2025 series 2-0 |
| ODIs | 3 | 2 | 1 | India won the series 2-1 |
| T20Is | 6 | 4 | 2 | India won the 2025 bilateral series 3-1 and the 2024 World Cup final; South Africa took the 2026 Super 8 |
| All formats | 11 | 6 | 5 | Closer than any single series suggests |
| Eleven completed internationals. The fourth T20I at Lucknow on December 17, 2025 was abandoned without a ball bowled and is excluded. Warm-up fixtures are not counted. | ||||
Read the aggregate and the two sides look evenly matched. Read the Test column on its own and they do not. South Africa have won both, by 30 runs and by 408, and the second of those is a record that will outlive everyone involved in it.
Test series scorecard: South Africa in India, November 2025
Eden Gardens lasted three days and produced four innings, none of them above 200.
South Africa made 159 in the first, Jasprit Bumrah taking five for 27. India replied with 189, a lead of 30 that felt larger than it was. South Africa’s 153 second time round left India needing 124, and on a surface that had already taken 30 wickets they were dismissed for 93 in 35 overs. Harmer took four for 21. Temba Bavuma’s unbeaten 55 in the second innings, made when South Africa were 93 for seven, is the innings that actually won the match.
Guwahati was the opposite kind of Test. South Africa batted for 151.1 overs and made 489, Senuran Muthusamy scoring 109 and Marco Jansen 93 from number eight. India were bowled out for 201, Jansen taking six for 48. South Africa declined to enforce the follow-on, made 260 for five declared with Tristan Stubbs on 94, and set 549. India lasted 63.5 overs and reached 140.
| Test and venue | South Africa | India | Result | Player of the match |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1st Test, Eden Gardens, Kolkata, Nov 14 to 16 | 159 (55) & 153 (54) | 189 (62.2) & 93 (35) | South Africa by 30 runs | Simon Harmer |
| 2nd Test, Guwahati, Nov 22 to 26 | 489 (151.1) & 260/5d (78.3) | 201 (83.5) & 140 (63.5) | South Africa by 408 runs | Marco Jansen |
| Series: South Africa 2-0. Player of the series: Simon Harmer, 17 wickets. Guwahati is India’s heaviest Test defeat by runs, and South Africa’s first series win in India since 2000. | ||||
The 408-run margin beat India’s previous worst, and the series was South Africa’s first in India since 2000. Sky Sports reported the result as the end of a twenty-five year wait. It also moved South Africa clear at the top of the World Test Championship table, as the ICC set out in its standings update.
ODI series scorecard: November and December 2025
The fifty-over series inverted everything the Tests had established, and it did so at a scoring rate the Tests never approached.
Ranchi opened with India making 349 for eight and Virat Kohli scoring 135. It was his 52nd ODI century, which took him past Sachin Tendulkar’s record for most hundreds in a single format, a milestone The Eastern Herald covered when he made it. South Africa were bowled out for 332 with four balls left, Kuldeep Yadav taking four for 68.
Raipur went further. India made 358 for five, Ruturaj Gaikwad scoring 105, and South Africa chased it down with four balls to spare through Aiden Markram’s 110. That is the highest successful run chase in an ODI played in India, by either side, ever.
Visakhapatnam settled it and was the only one-sided match of the three. Quinton de Kock made 106 in a South African total of 270, Kuldeep took four for 41, and Yashasvi Jaiswal’s unbeaten 116 saw India home by nine wickets with more than ten overs unused.
| ODI and venue | Scores | Result | Top score | Best bowling |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1st ODI, Ranchi, Nov 30 | IND 349/8 (50); SA 332 (49.2) | India by 17 runs | Virat Kohli 135 | Kuldeep Yadav 4/68 |
| 2nd ODI, Raipur, Dec 3 | IND 358/5 (50); SA 362/6 (49.2) | South Africa by 4 wickets | Aiden Markram 110 | Arshdeep Singh 2/54 |
| 3rd ODI, Visakhapatnam, Dec 6 | SA 270 (47.5); IND 271/1 (39.5) | India by 9 wickets | Yashasvi Jaiswal 116* | Kuldeep Yadav 4/41 |
| Series: India 2-1. Player of the series: Virat Kohli. Raipur produced the highest successful ODI run chase ever made in India. | ||||
T20I series scorecard: December 2025
Four completed matches, three to India, and a spread of margins that makes the 3-1 scoreline look tidier than the cricket was.
Cuttack was a rout. India made 175 for six, Hardik Pandya scoring an unbeaten 59, and South Africa were bowled out for 74 in 12.3 overs. It is the lowest total South Africa have made in a T20 international.
New Chandigarh two nights later went the other way by 51 runs, de Kock making 90 and Ottniel Baartman taking four for 24. Dharamshala was low-scoring and India won it comfortably. Lucknow was abandoned without a ball bowled, fog closing the ground. Ahmedabad finished the series with India making 231 for five and winning by 30.
| T20I and venue | Scores | Result | Top score | Best bowling |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1st T20I, Cuttack, Dec 9 | IND 175/6 (20); SA 74 (12.3) | India by 101 runs | Hardik Pandya 59* | Lungi Ngidi 3/31 |
| 2nd T20I, New Chandigarh, Dec 11 | SA 213/4 (20); IND 162 (19.1) | South Africa by 51 runs | Quinton de Kock 90 | Ottniel Baartman 4/24 |
| 3rd T20I, Dharamshala, Dec 14 | SA 117 (20); IND 120/3 (15.5) | India by 7 wickets | Aiden Markram 61 | Varun Chakravarthy 2/11 |
| 4th T20I, Lucknow, Dec 17 | No play | Abandoned, fog | Not available | Not available |
| 5th T20I, Ahmedabad, Dec 19 | IND 231/5 (20); SA 201/8 (20) | India by 30 runs | Tilak Varma 73 | Varun Chakravarthy 4/53 |
| Series: India 3-1. Player of the series: Varun Chakravarthy. South Africa’s 74 at Cuttack is their lowest total in T20 internationals. | ||||
Varun Chakravarthy took the series award with figures that bookended it: two for 11 at Dharamshala, four for 53 at Ahmedabad.
T20 World Cup meetings: the 2024 final and the 2026 Super 8
The two World Cup matches are the only ones in this record played with a tournament at stake, and they went one each.
Bridgetown in June 2024 was the closer of the two. India made 176 for seven, Kohli scoring 76 off 59 after India had fallen to 34 for three inside five overs. South Africa needed 30 from 30 with six wickets standing and did not get there, Hardik Pandya taking three in the closing overs and Suryakumar Yadav holding the boundary catch that removed David Miller. India won by seven runs. A fuller account of that night sits in our ball-by-ball scorecard of the 2024 final.
| Match | Scores | Result | Player of the match |
|---|---|---|---|
| Final, Bridgetown, Jun 29 2024 | IND 176/7 (20); SA 169/8 (20) | India by 7 runs | Virat Kohli |
| Super 8, Ahmedabad, Feb 22 2026 | SA 187/7 (20); IND 111 (18.5) | South Africa by 76 runs | David Miller |
| One trophy each way. The 2026 result ended India’s 12-match winning streak at the T20 World Cup. | |||
India recovered to win that tournament, beating New Zealand in the final at the same ground two weeks later. South Africa went out in the semi-final. Both of those facts are true and neither of them changes what the Super 8 scorecard says.
What the scorecards do not settle
The pattern across eleven matches is clear enough to state and not clear enough to project from. South Africa’s spinners have been the difference in the longest format, with Harmer alone taking seventeen wickets in four innings. India’s batting has scored at will in the white-ball games, twice passing 349 in an ODI and once making 231 in a T20I, and has twice been bowled out under 115 by the same opposition.
What nobody can say from these numbers is which version turns up next. The two sides have no bilateral series scheduled against each other in the published international calendar, and the squads that produced these scorecards have already changed: Kohli and Rohit Sharma have retired from the shorter formats, India have appointed a new T20I captain, and South Africa’s Test attack that dismantled India at Guwahati has a home summer against Australia in front of it before it faces India again.
India vs South Africa match scorecard: frequently asked questions
What is the India vs South Africa head-to-head record since 2024?
Eleven completed internationals between June 2024 and February 2026. India have won six and South Africa five. South Africa lead the Tests 2-0, India lead the ODIs 2-1, and India lead the T20Is 4-2.
What was India’s heaviest Test defeat?
The 408-run loss to South Africa at Guwahati on November 26, 2025. South Africa made 489 and 260 for five declared; India made 201 and 140. It is India’s largest Test defeat by runs.
Who won the 2024 T20 World Cup final between India and South Africa?
India, by seven runs at Kensington Oval in Bridgetown on June 29, 2024. India made 176 for seven, Virat Kohli scoring 76, and South Africa finished on 169 for eight.
What happened when India played South Africa at the 2026 T20 World Cup?
South Africa won the Super 8 match in Ahmedabad on February 22, 2026 by 76 runs. They made 187 for seven and bowled India out for 111. It ended India’s 12-match winning streak at the tournament.
What is South Africa’s lowest T20I total?
74, made against India at Cuttack on December 9, 2025 in 12.3 overs. India won that match by 101 runs.
Who scored the most runs in the 2025 ODI series?
Virat Kohli took the player of the series award. His 135 at Ranchi was his 52nd ODI century and took him past Sachin Tendulkar’s record for centuries in a single format.
What was the highest ODI run chase in the series?
South Africa’s 362 for six at Raipur on December 3, 2025, chasing India’s 358 for five. It is the highest successful ODI run chase ever completed in India.
How many wickets did Simon Harmer take against India?
Seventeen across the two Tests: four in each innings at Eden Gardens, and six for 37 in the second innings at Guwahati. He was named player of the series.
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