Blitzed with the ball, and battled it out with the bat. South Africa put Sri Lanka to utter shame, as the Proteas thumped them in a dominant six-wicket win at New York on Monday.
A slow start, turned into a horrendous nightmare in the first innings, as Sri Lankan batters could never settle in and find a breakthrough.
With a new captain leading the side, one might have thought that they would look to make a fresh start but it was a calamitous performance for the Lankan side who managed to register a score of just 77 runs, their lowest-ever total in the T20 World Cup and T20Is as a whole.
But, it wasn’t any easy task with the bat for South Africa either, who had to weather the Sri Lankan bowling attack and an iffy pitch to slowly yet surely seal the deal in the 17th over with the help of Heinrich Klaasen.
“Happy with the win. The batting was a little up and down, probably speaks to quite a tough wicket and luckily we found ways to score on this. It was a tough one from a batting point of view, we try as much as we can to take the pitch out of it, we can take some learnings from it and we are experienced,” stated SA skipper Aiden Markram in a post-match interview.
“Lots of different conditions as we move around, fortunately we have our next two here so we know what’s coming but it’s important to adapt as we go ahead.”
The pitch truly did no favours for either teams, whose batters had a field day navigating the seemingly spongy nature of the same.
Every bowler shone with the ball today for South Africa, but none were brighter than returning pacer Anrich Nortje, who obliterated the Sri Lankan batting ranks.
Nortje, who was out of the previous World Cup due to injury, would go on to register a spell of 4/7 in 4 overs, the best-ever figures registered by a Protean pacer in the T20 World Cup.
“I was not worried about him but a fantastic day for him, from a mental confidence point of view. He is massively loved in the changeroom, boys are incredibly happy and proud of him, hopefully this kicks off a great World Cup for him,” exclaimed Markram.
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