Jean Paul Duminy
The Proteas crushed Zimbabwe by the second biggest margin in ODI history at Willowmoore Park on Friday. It was the final encounter of the 3 match series and SA comfortably managed to clean sweep Zimbabwe. The Zimbabwe team was found struggling throughout the series. They never looked to give a competition to the second best ODI team.
SA went on to bat and posted a mammoth 400 runs to chase. The hallmark of their innings was successful accomplishment of centuries by both Duminy and AB de Villers. These two shared a record 219-run partnership for the third wicket. Duminy made his ODI career best 129 runs which consisted of seven fours and four sixes. This was his second ODI century. Duminy was adjudged the man of the match. AB scored his second successive century in this ODI making 109 runs off just 99 balls. De Villers was pronounced the man of series. All other Proteas batsmen also made a decent contribution to post the 399-6 colossal team score.
The Zimbabwe bowlers had a real tough time. They were all assaulted brutally. Masakadza and Nicolson were ruthlessly beaten. Masakadza gave 95 runs in his 10 overs while Nicolson conceded 74 runs in 7 overs he bowled.
Zimbabwe innings didn’t last long. They collapsed in 29 overs with just 127 runs on the board. They were too incompetent to face the eminent world class South African Bowlers. Theron led the attack for the Proteas clinching 3 wickets giving away just 18 runs. Parnell, Botha and Morkel also had two wickets each. LL Tsotsobe managed to scalp one wicket. The top scorer for Zimbabwe was Taibu with his 28 runs in the miniscule Zimbabwe innings.
“It’s hard to find the words to say when you’ve had such a convincing win,” South Africa captain Graeme Smith said. “But I think we’ve steadily improved throughout the series. The hard work is starting to pay off.”
“We didn’t play our best cricket today, both batting and bowling,” Zimbabwe skipper Elton Chigumbura said. “Overall, our skill levels are under-par. It’s something we have to go back home and work on.”
SA missed a tenth score of 400 or above in ODIs by one run. They also missed on the biggest win in ODIs by a mere 18 runs. This record is currently held by New Zealand against Ireland whom they defeated by 290 runs in 2008. But, it was an extravagant performance by the Proteas.
SA will now play against Pakistan in a T20, ODI and 2 test series in UAE. They also have a 3 match test series, 5 ODI and a T20 match against India at home before the World Cup starts in February.
Tags: AB de Villers, Cricket, JP Duminy, ODI Cricket, Proteas, SA, South Africa, Zimbabwe
