CWC 2013, Match 10, South Africa VS Australia
At BRSABV Ekana Stadium, Lucknow on October 12
South Africa 311/7 (Quinton de Kock 109, Aiden Markram 56, Temba Bavuma 35, Henrich Klassen 29, Rassie van der Dussen 26, Glen Maxwell 2/34, Mitchell Starc 2/59, Josh Hazelwood 1/60, Adam Zampa 1/70, Pat Cummins 1/71)
Australia 177 All Out in 40.5 Overs (Marnus Labuschagne 46, Mitchel Marsh 27, Pat Cummins 22, Kagiso Rabada 3/33, Keshav Maharaj 2/30, Tabriz Shamsi 2/54, Marco Jansen 2/54)
South Africa Won by 134 Runs
Player of The Match: Quinton de Kock (109 in 106 balls)
Flying high South Africa pulverized awful Aussies to the pulp crashing them to a huge 134 runs defeat in an out sided affair at Lucknow yesterday. Winning two matches in two Protean consolidated their position among the top.
Losing two in two missions of Australia in CWC 2023 remains in nightmare. Winning the toss Australia put South Africa into bat. Resuming where he left off in the first match against Sri Lanka amazing Quinton de Kock producing another innings of excellence (109 in 106 balls) he led South Africa creating yet another sky scrapper of 311/7 in allotted overs. Australians failing miserably in confronting strong protean pace and spin were bundled out for 177 in 40.5 overs. South Africa won huge and handsome by 134 runs.
South Africa, New Zealand, India, and Pakistan have emerged as the 4 top teams of the 10 after conclusion of the second round of group matches. However, with two huge wins South Africa is at the top followed by New Zealand. Reigning champions England and 5 times champions Australia are not among the pack. The round three starts today with New Zealand taking on Bengal Tigers at Chennai today.
All are aware that Australia won world cup five times, South Africa never even featured in the final. This time South Africa looks well prepared for making a crack at it. Australians on the other hand appears rusty. They are not only batting and bowling well below par but also fielding poorly. South Africa thrashed Sri Lanka in their first match creating some enviable milestones. Yesterday handing over a huge defeat to Australia they continued their superiority over the Aussies in recent time. Australians lost their first match against tournament favorites India apart from the huge defeat yesterday.
Pat Cummins Australian captain must be ruing his decision of letting South Africa batting first. The protean were fresh from their Lankan bashing setting the highest team score record of 428/5, three centuries in one match and quickest hundred. Quinton de Kock was in pristine form. Kock and Bavuma cruising to a first wicket partnership of 108 in 19.4 overs set the tone. Temba Bavuma got out scoring 56 in 44 deliveries. de Kock repeated his performance of match one posting another scintillating century (109 in 106 balls). At one stage it seemed like South Africa was going to score another 370-380 runs innings. However, Australian bowlers bowing well in the last 10 overs could restrict South Africa to 311/ 7. Australia dropped as many as 4 catches some of those were sitters.
Australians looked awful in their chase as wickets kept tumbling throughout their innings. They could neither play the pace of Kagiso Rabada (3/33) and Marco Jansen (2/54), nor could deal with the spin of Keshav Maharaj (2/30) and Tabraiz Shamsi (2/38). None but Marnus Labuschagne (46) could provide any resistance at all. They were crushed to 6/70 by the 17.2 Overs and could not recover though tail wagged a bit. But that was too little to less. The innings was wrapped up at 177 still 134 runs in arrears. Australia will need to revolutionise their performance if they want to advance to the semifinal. We are not sure whether South Africa will choke or not. But at this stage, they look set for writing the CWC 2023 mission in red letters.
This Australia team appears unknown to me. We have never seen Australia going down without fight like this in the past. Quinton de Kock for his second century in as many matches was duly adjudged player of the match.
BDST: 0830 HRS, OCT 13, 2023
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