ICC World Twenty20: Proteas stamp authority on competition

Posted by Shaun Custers on Jun 8, 2009 in Pro20, Proteas Team | 3 comments

South Africa stamped their authority on the ICC World Twenty20 on Sunday beating Scotland by a whopping 130 runs, in their first outing in Group D at the Oval in London.

Winning the toss and electing to bat South Africa went out and scored their highest International Twenty20 total of 211 runs. Jacques Kallis and Graeme Smith opening the innings, surprisingly it was Kallis who got off to a quick start, at one point he hit three fours in a row.

Kallis was later out for 48 from just 31 deliveries. Only two balls later Graeme Smith (38) skied a ball trying to play one too many shots onto the leg side.

With a solid platform in place Herchelle Gibbs and AB de Villiers came together, both played their natural games from ball one. Herschelle Gibbs pushed to keep the scoreboard ticking but was a little too ambitious charging down the wicket without a care in the world. This aggressive tactic cost him his wicket as he missed one and was stumped by the Scotland wicket keeper.

AB de Villiers played with total control, scoring an unbeaten 79 from 34 balls. de Villiers innings included five fours and six sixes, he brought up his half-century off only 25 balls. The only moment of glory for Scotland came from Kyle Coetzer taking a world class catch diving backwards on the boundary to dismiss Mark Boucher.

Needing more than ten runs per over from the first over, Scotland were always going to be struggle with their inexperienced batsmen. All the South African bowlers contributed to the regular fall of wickets, Scotland eventually gave into the pressure managing only 81 runs from 15.4 overs.

With Australia and England suffering early defeats South Africa will be confident going into their clash with New Zealand on Tuesday evening.

3 Responses to “ICC World Twenty20: Proteas stamp authority on competition”

Freddie Knaggs says:
June 10, 2009 at 1:18 am

South Africa have got a great chance to push on now and give it a real go in this tournament. It may just be a case of peaking too soon though, which Smith and his men should be wary of!
gail Heuvel says:
June 11, 2009 at 7:16 pm

we are watching sa against england at present and am surprised and both saddened at sport presenters not giving the credit to the south african players. The guys are brilliant are always make us proud.
Shaun Custers says:
June 12, 2009 at 2:54 pm

@Gail, I agree there has been a lot of criticism directed at the boys, and I can’t figure out why. They have been playing great cricket and have even defended their total when they didn’t do well with the bat.