Ingram puts Proteas in semis:
NEITHER West Indies nor Cardiff’s foul weather could stop South Africa from reaching the semifinals of the Champions Trophy cricket tournament last night.
Their crunch group match was tied, which put SA through on the strength of their superior run-rate.
Thanks to an excellent knock of 73 from opener Colin Ingram, SA totalled 230/6 in the 31 overs their innings was shortened to by rain. When another shower ended the match after 26.1 overs of the Windies’ reply, the Duckworth/Lewis method said the Windies needed 191 to win.
But they were 190/6 and, cruelly, out of the tournament.
SA’s muscular batting rippled with run-scoring intent. Ingram launched Sunil Narine high over long-on and into the River Taff. AB de Villiers top-edged a Tino Best bouncer beyond the fine leg fence.
Faf du Plessis, despite a sore back, mishit Ravi Rampaul down the ground for six. Ryan McLaren slashed and burned the first ball he faced, from Dwayne Bravo, into the sightscreen behind him for another handy half-dozen. David Miller sent three sixes arching over various parts of the onside ropes.
Du Plessis showed courage in his discomfort and Miller was a bristling threat to every bowler he faced. But it was Ingram, with his clear-headed approach and sure timing, who scored SA’s only half-century, a rollicking 73 off 63 balls.
SA’s foil to the sabre represented by Chris Gayle and his booming bat was to give JP Duminy the new ball and a slip.
Gayle could only manage a single off that first over but Johnson Charles took seven and Duminy was replaced by Dale Steyn, freshly fit from the side strain that kept him out of SA’s first two matches in the tournament.
Steyn was welcomed back by Gayle swatting his first delivery down the ground for four. Gayle drove the last ball of the over back at Steyn, who got a hand to what would have been a fine catch had he held it.
Then Chris Morris came round the wicket to Gayle and produced a delivery that pitched short of a length and jagged sharply away from the lefthander, who could do nothing except slap it into Du Plessis’s hands at point.
To remove a batsman for 36 scored off 27 balls with five fours and a six does not seem like a triumph, but it is when the man in question is cricket’s most thunderous thumper of a ball.
Marlon Samuels and Kieron Pollard rekindled the flames of West Indies’ challenge with a stand of 58 off 33 balls, and Pollard and Bravo put the Windies ahead of the Duckworth/Lewis target.
But Pollard’s dismissal with what became the last ball of the match put SA back in front, and into the semis.