South Africa clinched a last ball victory, in the tense match, where both the teams stayed, in hunt strangling each other, for the battle of supremacy, even though this match does not hold significance, as both teams have qualified for super eight, thanks to two huge defeats of Scotland.
Earlier New Zealand bowlers cuffed South African, for any comfort, barring a solid opening partnership between Graeme Smith and Jacques Kallis, South African failed to galvanize any momentum to their innings, as they lost wickets, at continuous intervals.
Ian Butler and Nathan Mc Cullum staged a good bowling performance, which effectively filled the void of absence of likes of Daniel Vettori, Jesse Ryder and Ian Obrein. The fact that, South African lower order could not launch, into any single over at death led them, to settle for a meagre score of one twenty eight runs, which could have definitely pleased the Brendon Mc Cullum, who won the toss and put the opposition to bat.
South Africa was in no mood, to gift the match, to New Zealand, with a great pride at stake, which was obvious from the fiery speech from their captain Graeme Smith before the start of the match.
Dale Steyn and Wayne Parnell opened he attack and build pressure, even though Brendon Mc Cullum was in league of his own, as he continued, to pile away runs and made full use of fielding restrictions in power plays.
Martin Guptil and Neil Broom both succumbed to their pull shots, as they gifted the catches to the fielders. But Ross taylor and Brendon Mc Cullum , two cornerstones of the New Zealand batting build on a solid partnership, which was more than enough, for chasing a low score.
But the biggest difference between two sides is Roelof de Merwe, even though he managed a five ball duck in his batting, be bowled brilliantly for figures of fourteen runs along with two price scalps of Brendon Mc Cullum and Ross Taylor,at the end, which brought the baton back to South Africa.
New batsmen Jacob Oram and Scott Styris found it elusive to fabricate big shots, as they have very little time, to set their eye in and Wayne Parnell along with Dale Steyn shouldered the huge pressure of big hitting of Jacob Oram, where they did not gift any cheap runs in the last two overs.
New Zealand could have still romped home, if Jacob oram could have hit the wayne parnell’s final ball, to ropes, but he managed only two runs, with a miss hit, to find his team excruciatingly short of one runs.
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