Sri Lanka’s losing to South Africa means they will be eliminated irrespective of their results against West Indies & India if England wins at least one of their remaining games.
South Africa won the toss and decided to bowl first on the flat track. Sri Lanka in a must-win game lost their skipper of the very first ball of the innings. Despite the early loss, Kusal Perera and Fernando played freely and stroked their team to 67 runs in less than ten overs. That was their only good part of the match.
The middle order didn’t show any positive intent to stay on the wicket and score some runs for the team. You can’t throw away your wicket after playing so many balls in the middle overs, that too when the result of the match decides a berth in semi-final. Kusal, Angelo, Dhanajaya, Jeevan and Thisara all played over 25 balls, but none went on to score big.
Sri Lanka was bowled out for 203 runs in the 50th over. Dwaine Pretorius who was playing his second game of the tournament took three wickets and so as Chris Morris.
South Africa had no pressure to chase a low Sri Lankan total. When Proteas have nothing to lose, they dominate the opposition. The same thing happened in this game.
Although Malinga provided the early breakthrough. Despite losing de Kock in the fifth over, South Africa comfortably chased down the target in less than 38 overs. Both Faf (96 not out) and Amla (80 not out) played some beautiful drives and flicks during their unbeaten partnership of 175 runs for the 2nd wicket. Sri Lankan bowlers couldn’t
STATS
- Amla has now 8113 runs in ODIs for South Africa, only de Villiers and Kallis have scored more runs for South Africa in ODIs.
- The unbeaten 175 runs partnership between Amla and du Plessis is the highest run partnership for South Africa for any wicket against Sri Lanka in World Cup.