Giving the new ball to http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Allan-Robert-Border-c43726 de Villiers – Cricket News Update
South Africa’s limited-over captain, http://www.senore.com/Cricket/England-c56013 at Nottingham was a gamble but the wicketkeeper/batsman is delighted that it paid off.
The Proteas defeated the home team by seven wickets in the last match to level the competition 2-2, after their Test series triumph earlier in the season to be crowned as the world’s best side.
After losing the third and the fourth ODI, the South African skipper decided to make some strategic changes in the final encounter. One of the many experiments was his decision to open the bowling with the left-arm spinner along with http://www.senore.com/Cricket/DW-Steyn-c1409.
Peterson went on to pick up three crucial wickets after giving away merely 37 runs in his 10 overs, helping his side restrict England to just 182. The visitors lost three early wickets before http://www.senore.com/Cricket/HM-Amla-c1557 and the skipper scored 172 unbeaten runs for the fourth-wicket
partnership, which sealed the game for the ‘Rainbow Nation’.
"That was a late call from me," de Villiers said. "I just discussed it with http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Gary-Ballance-c1465 (Kirsten) before we went out and said go with your gut feeling. We only had three seamers, I was going to have to bowl a lot of spin and I thought I might buy myself a couple
of overs and even pick up a wicket."
Apart from Peterson, part time spinners, http://www.senore.com/Cricket/South-Africa-c757 usually relies on their pace bowling but the slow bowlers complimented Steyn and company brilliantly in the final ODI.
De Villiers, who was ecstatic after the victory, expressed that the experiment had been successful in the past as well, given that openers are usually uneasy against early spin.
"Robin has done it before and has always been successful. It's never nice as an opener to face a spinner, you want the ball coming into your bat. It paid off today so I'm very chuffed," the captain added.
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