T20IWC : South Africa edge past England in a roller coaster thriller to get close to SF berth

 

South Africa beat England in a tense & rivetting match in the T20 World Cup Super Eight.  Proteas won by 7 runs.  Quinton de Kock's batting and Kagiso Rabada's controlled bowling powered South Africa.  Harry Brook could not win England despite playing a fighting knock.

 England captain Jos Buttler won the toss and elected to bowl first in St Lucia on Friday.  That decision boomeranged.  From the beginning, the English bowlers were under pressure from D'Kock's batting. It was Quinton DeKock show in first part of the innings as he played sizzling shots to all parts of the ground and singled out Jofra Archer for special treatment.   The other opener Riza Hendricks (19) was playing slow.  He got out at the head of the team's 86 runs.  D'Kock also returned after some time.  He scored a dazzling 65 runs off 38 balls with the help of four fours and four sixes. Indeed some high quality strokeplay. 

 The rest of the batters could not maintain that level of scoring .  South Africa quickly lost Heinrich Klaasen (8) and Aiden Markram (1).  But David Miller became the saviour of the Proteas.  He scored 43 off 28 balls with the help of four fours and two sixes.  South Africa made 163-6 in the allotted overs.

 Maybe not too many runs judging by the pitch for the Proteas .  But none of the English batsmen could play aggresive.  He Seeing that, the South African bowlers bowled according to plan.  Instead of hitting hard, they gave slower balls.  That worked.  English batsmen had no chance to play big shots.  Between the fifth over and the 12th over, England did not hit a single four.

England was also losing wickets continuously.  They lost four wickets for 61 runs.  Brooke and Liam Livingstone took over from there.  The two continued to play aggressively and lead the team forward.  46 runs were needed in the last four overs.  Otniel Bartman gave 21 runs in the 17th over.  England started to smell victory by then.

 But Rabada came back  for a final spell.  he dismissed Livingstone in the 18th over.  He gave only four runs in that over.  Marco Janssen conceded just seven runs in the next over.  England needed 14 runs in the last over.  Nortje dismissed Brooke (53) on the first ball.  Captain Markram took a great catch at mid on.  Sam Curran hits a four off the third ball.  One run off the next two balls ensured South Africa's victory.  Quinton DeKock was rightly declarecd the man of the match.