South Africa Finishes Cricket World Cup With A WIN
South Africa performed fantastically in their final match of the Cricket World Cup to beat Australia by 10 runs at Old Trafford in Manchester, UK, on Saturday. Man of the Match was Faf du Plessis thanks to his century (100 off 94 balls, 7 fours and 2 sixes), his 151-run partnership with Rassie van der […]
South Africa performed fantastically in their final match of the Cricket World Cup to beat Australia by 10 runs at Old Trafford in Manchester, UK, on Saturday.
Man of the Match was Faf du Plessis thanks to his century (100 off 94 balls, 7 fours and 2 sixes), his 151-run partnership with Rassie van der Dussen and “overall leadership qualities”, according to Cricket SA.
This was Du Plessis’ fifth century against the team from Down Under, and his 12th overall. According to Cricket SA, Du Plessis is now the seventh Protea player to complete 1,000 ODI runs against Australia.
Saturday’s match marked the 100th ODI between SA and Australia… with both teams providing a memorable match today. Incredibly each has won 48 of those 100 encounters, with another three ending in ties, and one with no result!
It was also the Proteas eighth victory over Australia in the countries’ last nine encounters, but only South Africa’s second victory over Australia at a World Cup, the other one having come in South Africa’s first ever match at a World Cup at Sydney in 1992.
Cricket SA also paid tribute to David Warner who also could’ve been named man of the match for his century which included 122 off 117 balls, 15 fours and 2 sixes).
“There were good supporting acts for both sides by Van der Dussen who made a career best 95 (97 balls, 4 fours and 4 sixes) and Alex Carey for Australia (85 off 69 balls, 11 fours and a six).
“Kagiso Rabada finally came out on top of the South African bowling attack (3/56) which included two critical wickets in his last over when Australia were still threatening to make a successful chase,” said Cricket SA.
Other key contributions to the South African victory were the opening stand between Aiden Markram and Quinton de Kock which enabled the Proteas to post easily their best total in the opening power play of 73 runs – it was also the fourth highest of the tournament – and a big improvement in the quality of the fielding with De Kock and Markram again playing key roles as did Chris Morris.
The outcome of this match is that India top the final log and will play New Zealand in the one semi-final and Australia take on England in the other.