Player of the Match
Player of the Match
2801dThe Report by Andrew McGlashan at Eden Park

SA overcome hiccups to seal series, regain No. 1 spot

Faf du Plessis and David Miller put on an unbroken 62 to seal the series and the No. 1 ranking for South Africa, after a top-class performance from the pacers bowled New Zealand out for 149 in th

Match Centre

Statistics

Best performances - Batsmen

F du Plessis
F du Plessis
51(90) 6x4 - 0x6
Control %85%
  • Productive Shot
  • pull
  • 11 runs
  • 2x4 - 0x6
8 2 6 2 10 7 6 10
DA Miller
DA Miller
45(35) 6x4 - 2x6
Control %82%
  • Productive Shot
  • pull
  • 13 runs
  • 1x4 - 1x6
6 2 4 0 2 7 15 9

Best performances - Bowlers

K Rabada
K Rabada
O7.1
M1
R25
W3
Eco3.48
RHB
OFFLEG
1W
1W
  • FTFULL TOSS
  • YYORKER
  • FFULL LENGTH
  • GGOOD LENGTH
  • SGSHORT OF GOOD LENGTH
  • SSHORT LENGTH
LHB
LEGOFF
1W
Imran Tahir
Imran Tahir
O10
M0
R14
W2
Eco1.40
RHB
OFFLEG
2W
  • FTFULL TOSS
  • YYORKER
  • FFULL LENGTH
  • GGOOD LENGTH
  • SGSHORT OF GOOD LENGTH
  • SSHORT LENGTH
LHB
LEGOFF

Match Details

Toss

South Africa , elected to field first

Player Of The Match

Series result

South Africa won the 5-match series 3-2

Match number

Season

Hours of play (local time)

14.00 start, First Session 14.00-17.30, Interval 17.30-18.15, Second Session 18.15-21.45

Match days

04 March 2017 - day/night match (50-over match)

TV Umpires

Reserve Umpire

Match Referee

Scorer: Sanjay Murari | Commentator: Varun Shetty

The last time AB de Villiers and South Africa were at Eden Park in an ODI, it ended with them in tears and at pains to come to terms with what had happened. Tonight, they lift the trophy with a smile. Certainly, this does not compare to a win in a World Cup semifinal, but beating New Zealand in New Zealand is a big deal. Not only do South Africa leave Eden Park with fonder memories, they leave it with the No. 1 ranking in their possession too. It was a somewhat antithetical, one-sided finish to an otherwise well-fought series. Plenty to still look forward to as the teams switch to whites with the first Test beginning on Wednesday. Hope to see you then and thank you for joining us.

AB de Villiers - We won quite a few tosses in the series and it made it a little bit easier. It is not often that a series goes to 2-2, credit to New Zealand for making this a tough series. Great effort overall. I don't think it was quick as it is normally here. It was quite slow and moved around a bit. They came back well, they are always a team that squeezes really well. They put the pressure back on us and it is always easy to go into a negative mindset in such a situation. But fantastic knocks from both Faf and David Miller. I'll be up watching the Test series in the morning. I'll miss the guys, but I look forward to spending some time with family before I go back to playing more cricket.

Kane Williamson - Credit to AB and the Proteas for outplaying us in the match. I think there were a lot of positives with the ball. I think what you need to do is put a score on the board that forces the opposition to take a few more risks. They bowled pretty well, they deserve everything they achieved tonight, but from our perspective, we will look to improve and come back hard. We need to put in those complete performances and show the signs of improvement. This summer at home, particularly, we have played a number of series against some of the top oppositions in the world and it has shown us where we need to improve. It has been a great summer, we are a little tough on ourselves, I guess, after today, but generally, there were some good parts both today and in the summer.

Kagiso Rabada - The day before the game was actually trying to get some rest to make sure I had the edge coming into the game. But we have seen how this wicket plays and the management gave us some pointers about what to do, and we also got a few pointers from the T20 from a few days ago and tonight we were able to execute our plans well. We are looking forward to the Tests, we have a few new guys coming in. looking forward to taking out skills from One-Day cricket to Tests and doing well there.

Kagiso Rabada is the Man of the Match for his 3 for 35.

Presentation time.

8.22pm And that's the series, folks. South Africa huffed and puffed to get there, but you'll have to classify this as a comfortable win in the end. That's usually how things go if you put on 149 in a 50 over game.

32.2
4
Boult to du Plessis, FOUR, a classy shot to bring up the series win and retain No.1 on the rankings. Short ball at off stump from around the wicket, he hangs back with all the composure he's shown today and pulls it in front of square with disdain. That was a leader's innings, and it will show as his 26th half-century
32.1
1
Boult to Miller, 1 run, dropped! Short at middle stump, tries to finish this game with a pull shot. Goes with hard hands, gets a top edge to fine leg. Patel runs in, but slows down towards the end and he has to therefore go low to try and catch it - too low, no catch

END OF OVER:
32 | 2 Runs | SA: 145/4 (5 runs required from 18 overs, RR: 4.53, RRR: 0.27)

  • Faf du Plessis47 (89b)
  • David Miller44 (34b)
  • Mitchell Santner2-0-9-0
  • Trent Boult9-0-39-0
31.6
0
Santner to du Plessis, no run, good length at middle, it's an arm ball and it slides back to catch him on the pads, bowler appeals, going down leg
31.5
0
Santner to du Plessis, no run, good length at middle stump, flicked to midwicket
31.4
0
Santner to du Plessis, no run, full at off stump, driven back to the bowler
31.3
1
Santner to Miller, 1 run, tosses it up liberally outside off from around, well wide from Miller's arc and he gets the bottom of the bat as he goes for the slog sweep. Rolls down to long-on

Hot Streak

7

Consecutive bilateral series wins for SA in ODIs since July 2015. They have won two of those away from home and five of them at home.

Tough Ask

1

Number of times NZ have defended a score of less than 150 in ODIs. It was against Australia way back in 1983 when they defended 139.