Majestic De Villers leads SA's resounding win over Netherlands
March 03, 2011 18:29
In today's World Cup league match played at Mohali, South Africa outplayed Netherlands to win the match by a substantial margin of 231 runs.
Chasing a victory target of 352, the Dutch team made a confident start of 25 runs in the first five overs before Jacques Kallis claimed the wicket of Kervezee for 10 runs. With the exception of opener Wesley Baressi, who scored 44, the other Netherlands batsmen could not increase the required tempo to be able to cause any upset win over the Proteas. The final six Netherlands wickets fell for just 20 runs in seven overs. Netherlands failed to bat out the entire overs as the innings crumbled for 120 in 34.5 overs. Leg-spinner Imran Tahir was the pick of the bowlers for the Proteas as he bowled a meagre spell of 3/19 in 6 overs. Spinner Pietersen, medium pacer Kallis contented themselves with two wickets apiece.
Netherlands, hoping to replicate the success of Ireland team, inserted South Africa in after winning the toss. Netherlands bowlers though did not have any immediate success with the ball, however pegged down the famed South African battling line-up as the Proteas crawled to 108 runs losing 2 wickets in the first 25 overs. Smith made 20 while Jacques Kallis again got dismissed cheaply for just 2 runs.
However, opener Hashim Amla together with AB De Villiers formed a 221-run partnership for the third wicket. The former accumulated his eighth one-day century as he made 113. De Villiers maintaining his rich form posted the second successive ton in the present World Cup after his last week's 107 against the WI. Eventually, he departed for 134 runs with the aid of 13 fours and 4 towering sixes to the fence. P Duminy weighed in with a sparkling 40 in just 15 balls with the help of two fours and four sixes thereby helping the side piling up a mammoth total of 350 for the loss of four wickets.
Netherlands fast bowler Mudassar Bukhari bowled a wicketless decent spell giving away 44 runs in his quota of 10 overs.Fellow medium-pacer Ryan ten Doeschate had a costly success as he was taken away for 72 runs in 10 overs.
De Villiers was declared the Man-of-the-Math for his valiant innings of 134.
South Africa next plays England on 6th March at Chennai while the Netherlands will meet the Indian team on March 9th at New Delhi.