South Africa v West Indies: AB de Villiers and Imran Tahir star in ICC 2011 World Cup fixture
South Africa have started their World Cup campaign in fantastic fashion as they defeated the West Indies by a comprehensive margin of seven wickets in a Group ‘B’ match at http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Delhi-c780.
The Proteas victory was spearheaded by http://www.senore.com/Cricket/AB-de-Villiers-c887 and Imran Tahir as they destroyed the West Indian hopes.
The South African team showed today that they are equally strong in all the aspects of the game and looked a better side in all three departments of cricket as compared to the West Indies.
The difference of class between the two teams was quite evident as South Africa is an all-round unit, which does not rely on a single individual, whereas the West Indies are heavily dependent on the individual brilliances of Chris Gayle, http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Shivnarine-Chanderpaul-c90073
and Dwayne Bravo.
A big positive for the South Africans was the fact that their bowling performance was dominated by the spinners, which is usually not related to South African cricket.
The Proteas usually rely on their fast bowlers but today the spinners took six wickets in
their 29 overs after giving away only 138 runs.
http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Pakistan-c755 born leg spinner, Imran Tahir, made his international debut on the world stage and proved his class by taking four crucial wickets. Tahir got South African residency earlier this year and was immediately drafted in the national limited overs squad
against http://www.senore.com/Cricket/India-c750.
However, he did not appear in any of the matches against the visitors. Graeme Smith used Tahir as a surprise element and that’s why he did not play the leg spinner before the mega event.
AB de Villiers showed the rest of the world why he is rated as one of the most dangerous batsmen in world cricket. He struck his 10th One Day International (ODI) ton in the match and took the game completely away from the Caribbean side.
At no stage of his innings did he look to be in any kind of a trouble and scored his runs at a brilliant strike-rate. Even though http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Imran-c64193 Tahir broke the back of West Indian batting, de Villiers was named as the Man of the Match for his outstanding century.
South African captain, Graeme Smith, said during the presentation ceremony that, "Winning the toss was nice, we started well. Darren Bravo played really well, but we managed to peg it back in the middle. We tried to mix it up in the middle. Once you pick
a wicket, you can build pressure and we managed to pick up wickets in clusters”.
West Indies had their moments in the match but they failed to capitalize on them. However, they also have some positives to take from this match, which should give them a lot of hope for the upcoming group matches.
At one stage of the match, West Indies were looking threatening as the Bravo brothers were playing their shots at will. However, their lack of patience became the demise of their team.
The worst part for http://www.senore.com/Cricket/West-Indies-c760 was the injury to their vice-captain, Dwayne Bravo, who twisted his knee while bowling his third over. He is a key member of the West Indian team and a class player in his own right. We all hope that he is fit enough to take
further part in this World Cup as he is a real entertainer.
Darren Sammy was quite disappointed after the match but during the presentation ceremony he said that his team has the potential to bounce back. "We had an opportunity to get a lot more runs. We needed someone to play like AB did for http://www.senore.com/Cricket/South-Africa-c757. Darren
Bravo played really well and we hope he can continue”.
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