SA vs Zim: NatWest Series

Jacques Kallis scored his second hundred in consecutive days as South Africa bounced back from defeat in their opening match of the NatWest Series to record a comfortable 46-run victory over Zimbabwe at the St Lawrence Ground in Canterbury.

Zimbabwe fresh from the shock win against England again decided to chase as H Streak called correct at the toss, the South African captain seemed unconcerned as he stated he would have batted first anyway.

G Smith and H Gibbs again opened the innings with both batsman again failing to get going in the series as A Blignaut removed the ever dangerous Gibbs in his first over with a full pitch ball that bared a remarkable resemblance to that of James Anderson ball that dismissed him in the day before. In the next few overs J Kallis continued where he left off the day before as he scored relatively freely while his captain was struggling to get the ball off the square in a painstaking 7 from 21 balls. D Hondo replaced A Blignaut at the Nackington Road End who had gone for 16 in just two over. D Hondo made an immediate impact when in his second over he got a ball to swing in and trapped a helpless G Smith right on middle stump and the umpire finger went up in a flash.

At 29 for 2 in the 8th over South Africa were forced to consolidate and J Kallis and J Rudolph did just that with a solid partnership of 55 in just under 17 overs. However the period of immaculate bowling especially by D Hondo who conceded just 15 runs from his first 8 overs, and should have been allowed to bowl right through by his captain as he was causing the batsman, Imparticular the dangerous J Kallis all sorts of problems. The South African certainly had luck going his way as inside edges flew just wide of the stumps and a forward defence rolled back towards the stumps only to stop just a matter of inches from the stumps.

With the consolidation work completed to an extent the South Africans attempted to up the scoring rate with the introduction of a double bowling change, however R Price who had been a thorn in English teams side was proving hard to get away today as well as his first three overs saw him concede just 4 runs, but far more important in that 3rd over he took the wicket of the young J Rudolph for 32, well caught by a diving G Flower at short fine leg after attempting a cut shot.

Next move was a rather unexpected promotion up the batting order for A Hall, obviously to attempt to inject some life into the innings, and A Hall didn't disappoint as he and Kallis now looking a lot more in control added a remarkable 91 runs in just 14.3 overs (at 6.5 an over) to completely transform the game from a precarious position of 84/3 from 25 overs to a strangle hold of 175/4 from 38 overs. With 12 overs still to go and some big hitters such as M Boucher and S Pollock still to bat a big score now looked on the cards.

With A Hall sent packing by a brilliant catch by G Flower out on the boundary after A Hall miss-timed a pull of the bowling of S Ervine for a fantastic 56 from only 51 balls and including 3 x 4's and 3 x 6's.

M Boucher known for his destructive batting late on never really seemed to get going and was cleaned bowled by a straight ball by D Hondo, trying to hit him out of the ground on the leg side.

The former South African captain came to the middle and seemed a lot more fluent in his brief stay than M Boucher did as he clubbed 12* from just 9 balls. Meanwhile at the other end a confident J Kallis was sending the ball to all parts as he added 62 runs to his score in the final 10 overs alone. And as a team South Africa added 65 runs in a last 5 over blitz on the sorry looking Zimbabwe bowlers who had battled so well in the early part of the innings which saw only 83 runs scored in the first 25 overs but a major attack by South Africa saw a massive 189 scored in the final 25.

J Kallis was by far the standout of the South African innings and a well-deserved 100 was bought up with a Glorious four, driven through the extra cover region. Once the 100 came up Kallis freed his arms and raced to an undefeated 125, which became his highest ever score in One Day Internationals.

South Africa completed the 50 overs with a daunting total of 272/5 the highest of the series so far.


In reply Zimbabwe required 273 runs to win at a starting rate of 5.46

Zimbabwe made a poor start in reply to the total as they lost opener D Marillier for just 3 in the 4th over, and D Marillier had so far been the only one to contribute any runs to the chase.

However enter T Friend who single handily gave Zimbabwe a good chance of overhauling the total with a fine display of strokes and big hits. However why T Friend was going along confidently the same couldn't be said about the rest of the side as D Ebrahim battled for 25 overs for 40 runs from 68 balls.

G Flower entered the game on the back of a match winning performance against England just a few days earlier, however he found the tight bowling of the South Africans a lot harder to put away as he struggled for a long period of time, but in saying that offering invaluable support to the flowing T Friend who was still plugging away at the other end.

However disaster stuck for Zimbabwe as the only man who was looking at ease T Friend was dismissed after a useful partnership of 34 was added with G Flower. T Friends innings had come to an end in the 34th over in A Hall's second over of his return to the attack saw him pitched one up, T Friend playing across the line and missing to get comprehensively bowled for 82 (93).

The Zimbabwe innings them just seemed to fall away from a healthy position to needed around 8 runs and over and climbing rapidly. The young S Matsikenyeri who had shown so much promise in the previous game struggled for 13 balls before a quite amazing run that was never on saw S Matsikenyeri short of his ground by about two meters after a direct hit from the impressive A Hall at mid on.

A Blignaut was in two minds that undoubtedly caused his downfall, A Blignaut started slow and was trying to hang around and offer G Flower the strike, however when you're a big hitter it's hard to keep control and the first ball that A Blignaut decided to launch into next week was also his last, as he holed out straight to the waiting van Jaarsveld hands on the boundary, van Jaarsveld was never going to miss the catch as he didn't even have to move an inch.

The captain came to the middle to try and get the innings back on track however he also came unstuck when he tried to flick one of his pads and only succeeded in chipping it straight to Hall at short mid wicket who took a simple catch for just 5 (6). H Streak while at the middle was continually complained about the state of the ball and unlucky for him he never saw it to the end of the over to see the new ball that the umpires duly changed.

However the new ball didn't help the cause at all as the last three wickets fell in the space of the next seven overs, T Taibu ended the innings not out for a solid 18 (27) that enabled the Zimbabweans to push pass the bonus point target of 217.

Zimbabwe fell 46 runs short of the target mainly thanks to some impressive bowling that the South Africans lacked the day before at the Oval.

Overall A good solid performance by South Africa, a fine J Kallis century but Zimbabwe fought well but lost key wickets in the middle, otherwise were going well and this performance might well have transformed a few people's views that the win over England was a fluke.

Streak did fiddle the batting order and this may have had an effect but South Africa kept plugging away and got the vital wickets when needed most A Hall was the pick of the bowlers with good support from S Pollock and M Ntini while Dawson was somewhat unimpressive going for 47 from 8 overs, however it was a slight comeback after a terrible and expensive earlier spells.


Match Summary

South Africa: 272/5 - J Kallis 125*, A Hall 56, J Rudolph 32; D Hondo 2/29 (9 overs)

Zimbabwe: 226 - T Friend 82, D Ebrahim 40; A Hall 3/38 (9 overs), S Pollock 1/35 (10 overs), M Ntini 1/44 (10 overs)


South Africa Won By 46 Runs

Cricket Web Man of the Match: J Kallis

Posted by Richard