AB’s batting unit doing it their way

A 1.90m leprechaun, a dozen or so blokes dressed in green morph-man suits, lots of beer and a rousing rendition – assisted by the stadium DJ – of Oh, Danny Boy, meant the Irish team were made to feel at home here last night.

They weren’t allowed to perform to the standards they showed in their first two matches, however. Ireland had looked impressive in beating the West Indies and the UAE, chasing with composure in both matches.

Here though, it was always going to be one of their harder tests and they looked lethargic and made too many errors in the field to ever be a genuine threat against a powerful South African batting line-up. Their bowling is not of the kind – they lack a top quality pace bowler – to genuinely examine batsmen of the ilk of Hashim Amla, Faf du Plessis or AB de Villiers and their batsmen would not

have faced high class fast bowling of the sort dished up by Morné Morkel, Dale Steyn, pic

tured, and especially Kyle Abbott last night.

Ireland need more matches against the top tier nations to improve – it’s been a constant refrain from their skipper William Porterfield throughout the time he’s been at the tournament – and last night proved it.

South Africa smashed another 400-plus total, their third this year and fifth overall underlining the power of their batting unit. However, as De Villiers was keen to outline, posting totals of that size is not simply the result of furious all out aggression. “You can’t just play positive cricket for 50 overs and go hard at everything,” he said.

“What pleases me about our batting at the moment is that we do it our way, we are not trying to follow unique strategies or someone else’s strategies. We stick to what we believe works for us, and that makes me happy as a captain.”

The formula is simple enough – in theory. Amla and Du Plessis provide solidity in the early stages and then through the middle period before the likes of De Villiers, Dave Miller, Rilee Rossouw and when he’s back in the side, JP Duminy, then flourish.

”Knowing when to accelerate is about reading the situation. Faf and I just felt it was the right time to go for it yesterday and we did. It’s not a pre-planned thing,” said Amla, who notched up a 20th ODI century, which was also the highest of his career.

Ireland was always going to find it difficult to accelerate their reply once they’d been reduced to 48/5 in the 11th over. It also appeared that Steyn – playing in his 100th ODI – was starting to stir at this tournament. Steyn has been someway shy of his own high standards thus far, but as the tournament moves towards its apex, it was good from De Villiers’ perspective to see him bowl with the kind of meanness allied to accuracy that South Africa need.

Manuka Oval