South Africa struggled before coming to CWC 2023 and looked unsettled. But Temba Bavuma and team have brought their A-game to the World Cup just like always. This time around, South Africa is looking more dangerous than ever. Especially, Quinton de Kock, who announced his retirement from ODI cricket post CWC 2023, is making every innings count. South Africa have thrashed Bangladesh at Mumbai, thanks to him.
Quinton de Kock has been giving them great starts to pile up runs and put oppositions under pressure. He scored two centuries for South Africa already and he has hit his third against Bangladesh. South Africa have been scoring huge runs against oppositions and they continued to do so, at Mumbai, too. They won the toss and elected to bat first. Reeza Hendricks(12) and Rassie van der Dussen(1) failed.
Quinton de Kock steadied the ship with Aiden Markram(60). At the 30th over mark, South Africa scored only 167/3. But Quinton de Kock and Heinrich Klassen started going after the Bangladesh bowling in death overs. Quinton de Kock completed his 20th ODI century and 3rd in this CWC. South Africa once again found Heinrich Klassen finishing the innings on a huge high. They both have put on 142 runs in the next 14.3 overs.
South Africa with Quinton de Kock(174) and Heinrich Klassen(90) scored 382/5 in 50 overs. David Miller(34) made handy runs to push the score past 375, comfortably. In the chase, Bangladesh looked unsettled. At one time, they lost 6 wickets for 81 on board. Mahmudullah has decided to not give in easily and scored a memorable 111, in a losing cause. While, he knew Bangladesh cannot win, he did not give South Africa, 250 run victory. SA won the match by 149 runs, all the difference, is Mahmudullah’s great innings.
Gerald Coetzee(3/62), Marco Jansen(2/39), Kagiso Rabada(2/42), Lizaad Williams(2/56) and Keshav Maharaj(1/32) took wickets for South Africa. Well, with this win, they made one more step further in claiming their spot in Semi-Finals. Bangladesh seems to be in a crisis of their own. South Africa on the other hand, even though lost to Netherlands chasing, looking to stamp their authority with setting big scores. Their matches with India and New Zealand will be interesting. They have pushed NZ down to 3rd place with healthy NRR.