March 26, 2011

South Africa's dream of winning WC 2011 comes to an end

The third quarter-finals of the World Cup 2011 was played between South Africa and New Zealand at Shere Bangla National Stadium, Mirpur, Bangladesh. This was a crucial match for both of them as they have never won any World Cup till now. Who ever wins will proceed to the semi-finals and the other will have to sacrifice their dream of winning their World Cup. New Zealand won the toss & they chose to bat first.

Martin Guptill and Brendon McCullum opened the batting innings for Kiwis. The start was a bad one and the South Africans right from the start were putting pressure on the batting side. Both the openers were unsuccessful and they were back to pavilion in quick interval. NZ were 16 for 2 utilizing 6 overs. Jesse Ryder and Ross Taylor played well and put up a partnership of 114 runs which helped the kiwis to recover a bit. Ross Taylor gave a catch to Jacques Kallis and went back scoring 43 runs consuming 72 deliveries. After this fall, Kiwis could not resist the bowling attack of the South Africans and the wickets kept on falling in regular fashion. The score did not reach high but some how they manage to put up a total score of 221 runs for the loss of 8 wickets in 50 overs (NZ - 221/8, 50 over). Morne Morkel picked up 3 wickets. Jesse Ryder was the highest scorer for Kiwis scoring 83 runs.

This did not look like a huge target for the South Africans as they were playing outstanding World Cup. Hashim Amla in the very first over departed scoring only 7 runs. After this fall, there were some decent partnerships put. After the fall of Jacques Kallis, South African team collapsed. They could not resist the bowling attack of the Kiwis. They failed to reach the target and lost all 10 wickets scoring a total of only 172 runs in 43.2 overs (SA - 172/10, 43.2 over). Jacob Oram took 4 wickets and 2 catches.

New Zealand won the match by 49 runs. Man of the match was Jacob Oram for his brilliant all-rounding performance.

Thus the dream of winning WC 2011 for South Africa came to an end. In yesterday's match, Australia lost to India and were out of WC 2011. Fourth quarter-finals will be played between Srilanka and England. The winner of this match will face Kiwis in semi-finals while India will face Pakistan.

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