Monday, September 28, 2009

South Africa thrown out


South Africa, having suffered a big defeat against a much improved English side by 22 runs, is out of the tournament. This is the second defeat for South Africa; the first one coming against Sri Lanka by 55 runs in a rain curtailed match.

Graeme Smith won the toss and elected to field first. Joe Denly and Andrew Strauss began the innings for England. England had a reasonable start. After a couple of wickets, it was Paul Collingwood and Owais Shah, who gave strength to the team and soon these two started hitting South African bowlers all over the park. Especially, Owais Shah was crueler on South African bowlers, hammering 5 sixes. He was unlucky, not to get a hundred and was dismissed for 98. Paul Collingwood then took the charge with Eoin Morgan, who hammered 67 runs in just 34 balls. Collingwood made a well crafted 82. Eoin Morgan got out with few overs left but he managed to secure a strong total of 323 for the team. For South Africa, Wayne Parnell took 3 wickets and Johan Botha chipped in with 2 wickets.

In reply, Herschelle Gibbs and Graeme Smith started well and South Africa looked to adopt the right path to chase such a huge target. But wicket of Gibbs came sooner and Kallis followed him shortly. Then South Africa came back in the game with a great partnership between Smith and AB DeVillers for the third wicket. Together, they put on 78 for the 3rd wicket. Again, after DeVillers got out, it looked that South Africa might collapse, but J P Duminy played well for his 24. Together with Smith, Duminy put on 67 for the 4th wicket. After Duminy’s wicket, South Africa started to lose their wickets at regular intervals. Though, Albie Morkel did hit some lusty blows, but they weren’t sufficient. Graeme Smith almost carried his bat and was the last one to got out. His innings was an outstanding one, scoring his 9th ODI century off just 104 balls. He made 141 in 134 balls, with 16 fours. After it looked that no one could stay at the wicket, Smith decided himself to finish the job; though he couldn’t do so. His innings were larger than life and would be remember for days to come. James Anderson and Stuart Broad were the pick of the bowlers to take 3 wickets each.

Owais Shah was declared the Man of the Match for his thundering innings of 98 runs.

Meanwhile, another player has got out of the tournament. The latest victim is England’s wicketkeeper batsman Matt Prior due to illness.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

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Cricket Bats said...

Who would have predicted before the start of the Champions Torphy that New Zealand and England would make the Semi Finals at the expense of Sri Lanka & South Africa?

Cricket Maniac said...

Not me, at least...I thought probably South Africa and Sri Lanka would have sailed their way to the semi finals

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