Significant victory

SOUTHAfrica slew dragons aplenty in their comprehensive nine-wicket victory over Sri Lanka in a Cricket World Cup quarter-final in Sydney yesterday. For starters they got off their collective backs the “monkey” of never having won a knockout match at a 50-overs World Cup (they had reached the semi-finals previously by way of league formats).

The Proteas had also lost two Pool matches at the current event in the Antipodes, both times batting second – against India and Pakistan. So yesterday’s one-sided victory was the first time at this tournament that AB de Villiers’s team had got across the line when chasing a total.

Despite the huge margin of victory yesterday against the 1996 world champions, the South Africans were measured in their celebrations. That is prudent, since there are two more games to go to win the title.

Nobody in the camp will be putting the cart before the horse, but the South Africans’ performance did show how hard they can be to beat on their day.

The day did not start well… De Villiers lost the toss and his side was asked to field first.

From then on the players were clinical in the execution of their roles, and there was no let-up in pressure exerted on the opposition.

From the fast bowlers, who claimed a couple of early wickets, to the spinners – Imran Tahir and JP Duminy – who between them claimed seven wickets. That was almost “un-South African” given this country’s perennial strong suit in pace bowlers.

THE SIDE’S fielding was exemplary, too, helping to bring on rash and illjudged shots from opposing batsmen trying to break the shackles on their scoring-rate.

Take three members of the Proteas line-up: Kyle Abbott, in for Vernon Philander, was deadly with the new ball; Duminy, not a frontline spinner, claimed a rare World Cup hat-trick; and Quinton de Kock returned to sparkling form with an unbeaten 78 in the run chase. Unexpected perhaps, but proof that the sum of the parts of this team can comprise a champion team.

Only two more games to go.