World Cup 2015: South Africa vs Zimbabwe Review; Proteas recover to get an easy win

Review of Match 3 Group B South Africa vs Zimbabwe; South Africa win by 62 runs: Zimbabwe came into this match to regain its lost glory against a strong World cup contender team in South Africa. A match that was supposed to be one sided owing to the form of two sides.

Zimbabwe changed the mood of the game early on when South Africa decided to bat first after Captain AB de Villiers won the toss on the dry pitch. But soon South Africa found it difficult to score runs thanks to some nagging bowling by Tinashe Panyangara and Tendai Chatara. South Africa managed to score at just 2.80 runs per over in the 10 mandatory power play overs.

They also lost 4 wickets for 83 runs in 20 overs including the early wicket of Quinton de Kock and Hashim Amla, who played on his stumps from an in swinger by Panyangara. But then David Miller and J P Duminy got together to rebuild the innings slowly and with patience. There were 69 boundary less balls during the middle overs because they had to even turn the full deliveries for singles and doubles.

Miller and Duminy started their counterattack after the 37^th over which went for 10 runs. After that, the run taps were on in full flow. The rest of the innings were a mix of sixes and fours to all part of the Hamilton ground. Miller in particular became brutal on the bowlers, two of his sixes landed outside the ground resulting in balls being lost and replaced. Both of the batsmen continued the assault and added a world record 256 runs off 178 balls for fifth wicket.

Zimbabwe had bowled 23 overs for under six runs per over. Eight runs were the most they had given away until they bowled the 37th over which cost them 10. After that there was a batch of four overs between the 45th and 48th that hemorrhaged 80.

South Africa ended up making 339/4 after their 50 overs were complete. David Miller ended on 138* off 92 balls with 9 sixes and 7 fours while Duminy scored 115 off 100 balls with 9 fours and 3 sixes.

Zimbabwe began their chase by losing Sikandar Raza cheaply for 5 to Philander. But Chamu Chibhabha and Hamilton Masakadza got together and added 105 runs for the second wicket before Chibhabha holed out to J P Duminy off Imran Tahir. Zimbabwe tried to keep their foot on the accelerator in their bid to score quickly. This led Dale Steyn to leak runs at more than 7 runs per over.

But they kept losing wickets despite a spirited and valiant effort by Masakadza (80) and Brendan Taylor (40) who tried to build a partnership in middle overs. Zimbabwe kept losing wickets at regular intervals and despite a late surge by Solomon Mire (27), they failed to maintain the necessary run rate and the pressure got better of their batsmen who fell trying to hit the ball out of the ground.

Imran Tahir ran through their top order with his top spinners and wrong ones and captured 3 wickets giving away just 36 runs in his 10 overs.

David Miller named Man of the match for his brilliant counter attacking 138*.

Brief Scores:
South Africa 339/4 (David Miller 138*, JP Duminy 115*; T Kamungozi 34/1) beat Zimbabwe 277/10 48.2 overs (H Masakadza 80, C Chibhabha 64; I Tahir 36/3) by 62 runs.