Iyer, Kishan power India to 7-wicket win over SA
Hales helps England beat Australia, set for World Cup start
RANCHI, India, Oct 9, (AP): Shreyas Iyer scored his second ODI hundred as India beat South Africa by seven wickets on Sunday with 25 balls to spare.
Iyer finished with his highest ODI score at 113 not out and put on 161 runs with Ishan Kishan (93) for the third wicket as India eased to 282-3 in 45.5 overs in the second one-day international.
Earlier, half-centuries from Aiden Markram (79) and Reeza Hendricks (74) had helped South Africa to reach 278-7 after it won the toss and chose to bat.
The three-match series is level at 1-1. South Africa won the opener by nine runs. The third ODI will be played in Delhi on Tuesday.
Alex Hales appeared to seal his place in England’s team for cricket’s T20 World Cup after starring in a tense eight-run victory over Australia in Perth on Sunday.
With Jos Buttler returning to the side after a calf injury, Hales was preferred to Phil Salt as the England white-ball captain’s opening partner for the first of three T20 warmups against the Australians.
Hales underpinned England’s 208-6 with 84 off 51 balls, sharing a 132-run stand in 11.2 overs with Buttler (68 off 32 balls).
Australia needed to achieve a record T20 run chase by any team against the English and was on course to do it, getting to 158-3 midway through the 15th over only for Marcus Stoinis (35) and Tim David (0) to fall in the space of four balls from Mark Wood.
Then Wood, off the final ball of his allocated four overs, snagged David Warner for a team-high 73 as the opener holed out to Hales in the deep.
The match was in the balance but England took three wickets in the last eight balls of the chase to get home in Perth, with Australia finishing on 2009.
After the match, Buttler confirmed Hales, who has recently returned to the fold after more than three years in the international wilderness following a recreational drugs test failure, is set to open again when England returns to Perth in two weeks for its World Cup opener against Afghanistan.
“Things change quickly in sport but he’s got the first crack at it, at the
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minute,” said Buttler, who revealed Hales was selected because of his pedigree in Australia’s Big Bash League.
Captain Kane Williamson and opener Devon Conway shared an 85run partnership for the second wicket that helped steer New Zealand to an eight-wicket win over Bangladesh at the New Zealand Twenty20 TriSeries.
Conway struck his third T20 half century from 36 balls and eventually carried his bat for 70 from 51 while Williamson struggled at times with the pace of the wicket and made 30 from 29 balls as New Zealand chased down
Bangladesh’s 137-8 with 13 balls to spare.
After two rounds Pakistan have two wins, New Zealand have a win and a loss and Bangladesh two losses in the tournament that is a warm-up for the T20 World Cup that begins in Australia later this month.
The next match is between New Zealand and Pakistan on Tuesday.
New Zealand reversed the strategy of its match against Pakistan on Saturday that it lost by six wickets after batting first.