CWC2023: Van Dussen leads South Africa to 5 wkt win in a tricky chase vs Afghanistan

 

South Africa secured the second place in the points list of the World Cup after defeating Afghanistan in the last match of the round robin league.  Temba Bavuma's side lost to the Afghans by five wickets in Ahmedabad on Friday.  But the victory of the Proteas did not come easily as they chased the modest target . They apparently  stumbled several times but in the end Rasi van der Dusen brought victory to the team.  Andile Phehlukwayo also gave worthy accompaniment.  Batting second , South Africa finally crossed  244 runs made by Afghanistan for the loss of five wickets with 15 balls remaining . 

 Afghanistan's World Cup run is over, but Rashid Khan & Co will return with four wins in the league phase which is a tremendous achievement by this team. 

 South Africa had to chase runs three times in this World Cup.  The first time they lost in an incredible way against the Netherlands.  It is one of the best events of the competition.  It was followed by an epic last-wicket win against Pakistan.  Keshav Maharaj became the hero by hitting the  winning runs in the end.  South Africa again was making a heavy weather of another chase as  several top-order batters fail score runs.

 Chasing 245 runs, the Proteas did not get off to a bad start. They had  64 runs for the first wicket.  Skipper Bavuma returned for 23 runs.  A few moments later Quinton de Kock after scoring a fluent 41 lost his wicket after hitting a reverse sweep for no reason.  South Africa then lost Aiden Markram (25) , Heinrich Klaasen (10) and David Miller (24) one by one as the Afghan spinners led by Rashid Khan looked dangerous . Rashid had Markram caught and the dangerous  Klaasen Klaasen bowled while Miller was caught and bowled by Nabi who earlier had DeKock lbw .

 It seemed that they were going to have a similar situation as the Pakistan or Netherlands matches.  But that was not the case under Van Dussen and Phehlukwayo.  Their fight against the Afghanistan bowlers led the team to victory.  Dussen, who scored two centuries in the World Cup, remained unbeaten on 76 runs to finally get the man of the match .  Phehlukwayo deserves special praise.  He is a bowler.  But he played the role of an all-rounder under pressure.  In the 48th over of Naveen ul-Haq, he hit sixes, fours and sixes to win the team.  He remained unbeaten on 39 runs off 37 balls .  Both Rashid and Nabi took 2 wickets each . 

However, not many could have thought that Afghanistan would score 244.  South Africa's four pacers were full control at one point.  Neither the century-maker of Australia  match Ibrahim Zadran (15) nor the in-form Rahmat Shah (26) got a run. At one stage Afghanistan was struggling at 116/6 but Azmatullah Omarzai became the savior of Afghanistan in this situation.  He played some wonderful strokes . Afghanistan with some lower order fight , managed to put together a fighting score of 244 .

 Azmatullah was the nearly the second Afghanistan cricketer to score a century.  He got three balls in the last over but could not score any runs in those three balls and thus remained unbeaten on 97 runs. For the Proteas Maharaj (2/25) bowled brilliantly and economically while new star Coetzee took 4/44 to reach 20 wickets in this world cup .