South Africa canters to third successive win

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If Zimbabwe wanted to make this contest come alive, then its best bet was to go flat out for a win against South Africa. And it did seem, when David Houghton played an inimitable innings at the very end of the Zimbabwe innings to boost the total to 226 off the allotted 50 overs, that the visiting team could just make a fight of it on a wicket where scores in excess of 215, 220 are rated a tough ask for the side chasing.

In the event, however, a combination of dropped catches, missed run-outs, rather lackadaisical bowling and, on the part of the SA batsmen, a very professional willingness to capitalise on the lapses and the conditions saw the home team canter to a five-wicket win with all of three overs to spare.

This puts SA right on top with three wins in three outings thus far, and the battle for the second spot in the final scheduled for February 12 is now on between India and a Zimbabwe side still short of that elusive win against India after 13 tries.

Meanwhile, this is how the day's game went....

The Zimbabwe innings

Zimbabwe, perhaps inevitably, went into today's game at Newlands, Cape Town, with an unchanged side from the one that tied with India a couple of days ago. South Africa for its part made one change, necessitated by an Achilles tendon injury to Craig Mathews - Rudi Bryson got his chance to debut for the side.

The wicket was a shade slower than the one on which India and South Africa played the second Test of the recently concluded series, yet had enough grass, and the odd crack, on it to make things just interesting enough for batsmen. However, the pitch would not dictate the choice of strike here - what would, was the fact that in South Africa, the light starts fading much later than it would say in India. For instance, in the sub-continent twilight comes around the end of the first innings, so that the transition from natural to artifical light occurs pretty smoothly during the lunch break. In SA, however, that same period of uncertain light occurs during the early phase of the second innings - so that when the ball is new and hard and swinging is precisely when the batsmen have the most difficulty in sighting it. Makes sense, then, to bat first if the coin favours you, and that is what Alistair Campbell opted for after calling right.

Grant Flower has been in great touch on this tour this far, but on this occasion found his off peg knocked back by Shaun Pollock before the batsman had opened his account. Off the previous ball, Pollock had brought one in sharply from off a length to rap the batsman in the groin, and Flower looked in obvious pain from that rap in the box. The next ball held its line on off stump, the batsman poked at it without even moving his feet and heard the rattle of the timber - the stroke of a batsman obviously rattled by a painful blow, and Zimbabwe were reduced to 1/1.

That brought Andy Flower out to join Andrew Waller - and yet again, Zimbabwe's great strength turned out to be its biggest weakness. The Zimbabwe batsmen are all masters of the short single, guiding the ball to the left or right of a fielder and running with the stroke to make the shortest single look easy. Andrew Waller, who seemed in very good touch after two failures in the earlier two games, guided one to the left of Jonty Rhodes at point. Flower backed up, called for the run, saw Rhodes make one of his brilliant sliding stops and sent the batsman back. Rhodes, meanwhile, fired in a throw and missed the stumps. Cullinan, backing up, used his head, spun and threw at the bowler's end and Andy Flower, who was standing in mid pitch watching the drama, was taken totally by surprise and caught out of his ground. Pretty comical it all was, and Zimbabwe were reduced to 45/2, Flower's contribution being 13 off 50 deliveries with two fours.

Alistair Campbell was slated to come in at one drop, but first Andy Flower, then Paul Strang, came ahead of him. Strang may be a hard-hitting batsman, but the place for such is in the middle order, when the ball is older and the field more spread out. In the event, he struggled to get the ball away, finding the tight line of the bowlers and the brilliant SA ground fielding impenetrable and, in trying to force the pace, slogged Pat Symcox straight to midwicket where Rhodes (strange how the ball always seems to follow this man) dived to his right to make a difficult catch look ridiculously simple. Strang was gone for 11/27, and Zimbabwe 77/3.

Again, Campbell held himself back, and sent in yet another heavy hitter, Craig Evans. Again, the move was rather questionable, given that the situation called for steady accumulation, rather than risk-filled assault. In the event, though, it was Andrew Waller who, rather against the run of play, departed. He had been batting well till then, hitting Symcox out of the attack with a huge six, hammering five crisp boundaries and registering his individual fifty when Bryson disturbed his stumps as Waller (52 off 86 with five fours and a six), who had pulled a short one for four off the previous ball, tried to repeat the stroke to one of fuller length. Zimbabwe 100/4, the century mark having been registered in the 29th over.

Campbell finally did come out to bat, and looked in nice touch, rotating the strike easily and working the singles, never trying anything too risky and yet not allowing the scoreboard to remain static. Evans (19/27 with 2 fours), meanwhile, tried to live up to his rep as a hitter, aimed for a pick-up shot over midwicket, got the leading edge to one that Pollock held back and the bowler, on the follow through, held an easy one to reduce Zimbabwe to 125/5.

That brought in David Houghton, the most experienced player in the side and easily the most dangerous. Which brings up the question, incidentally, of why Houghton wasn't sent ahead of the Strangs and Evanses. In the event, the experienced batsman showed a cool head, not losing it though in the 40th over, Zimbabwe was still on 145 and looking set to post less than 200 overall. Crisp placement, an ability to take a run off every ball irrespective of line and length, and some good support from Campbell saw the score mount to 176 before Campbell (30 off 52 with one four) swiped at Hansie Cronje and Rhodes (who else?) ran backward at point, saw the ball dropping ahead of him, dived, took it in the reverse cup and then rolled his palms over it to ensure that the ball didn't slip through. Videotape that effort, slow it down and it could serve as a coaching manual on how to take difficult catches when the ball is swerving in the air and dropping behind you.

Guy Whittal came in at this stage and played some crisp strokes off the SA quicks to produce a rapidfire unbeaten 26 off 20 balls with three fours. But his effort was overshadowed by Dave Houghton, arguably one of the best innovators in the game today. Though his strokeplay is classically correct, Houghton has the ability, when he needs to pull the stops out, to borrow his cricketing vocabulary from the golf course. And the most remarkable shot he played on the day was the fours he hit off both Donald and Pollock - leaning right back on the back foot, front foot in the air, weight totally leaning away, Houghton let the ball come onto the bat and then just shovelled it, no other word for the shot, up and over the infield for fours. Another gem came when he walked across the stumps, picked Donald from outside off and, swivelling, hit the ball over midwicket for a boundary Viv Richards would have been proud to put his name to.

A magnificient display, that, which fetched 57 off 44 with seven fours and a six, and Zimbabwe closed its innings with a fighting total of 226/6 in 50 overs.

For South Africa, all the bowlers did their job - Pollock (2/50) being very tidy till Houghton went after him, debutant Bryson (1/41) showing a fair turn of speed off a bustling run up and getting both bounce and movement off the seam, Donald (0/44) and Klusener (0/38) bowling reasonably good spells and Cronje turning in his usual quota of 6 overs for 32 and taking a wicket. Interestingly, Symcox, whose four overs went for 16 and just the one wicket, was taken off as soon as Cronje saw Waller go after him - a point opposing teams would do well to keep in mind. Too often, rival teams have let Symcox dominate, without every taking the fight to him, and the spinner has turned in his quota of 10 for little, and checked the run-getting in the middle. One calculated assault of the Waller variety today, and SA could find itself one bowling option short.

For Zimbabwe, the best bet was to rely on its safe fielding and the bowling of Brandes for an early breakthrough or two, and then turn the pressure on.

In the event, a combination of factors saw SA get off to the sort of start it is very difficult to lose from. First up, Brandes found himself bowling into a very gusty wind, and strayed all over the shop floor for his first three overs. And Rennie, who would have been better served in his swing bowling if he were going into the wind, was used at the end Brandes wanted to operate from.

Six of those overs, then another four while Campbell used Streak and Whittall to rotate the bowlers back round, and the damage was done, SA going along to 43/0 in 10. The minute Brandes came back from the end he wanted to bowl from, his first ball was bang on target, lifting and richocheting off the splice of Hudson's (26 off 37 with four fours) bat for Strang to tidy up at coverpoint.

Lance Klusener came in, slogged, missed, grinned impishly, slogged, hit, grinned wider, swished... talented bat, that lad, but he seems to tend to treat the whole thing as a lark. Meanwhile, Kirsten, who saw Grant Flower drop a difficult one at point off an uppish slash and promptly took advantage with some typical cover and square drives and cuts when the bowlers gave him width, kept the momentum going at the other end.

Inevitably, it was the slapdash Klusener who fell first, poking his bat at one from Rennie going far enough away outside off to have tempted the umpire to call the wide. In the event, Klusener (19/30 with one four) pushed it straight to Grant Flower who, just two deliveries ago, had got a swirling chance off Kirsten which he managed to get both hands to and then spilled. This time, he made no mistake and SA were 83/2.

Darryl Cullinan is a class act with the bat, but his style of running between the wickets is certainly not for those whose blood pressures are up there in the danger zone. Several yes-no-maybe-waitaminnit type comedies later, he watched Kirsten (55 off 88 with 5 fours) push one down at his feet, took off from the non-striker's end like all the devils in hell were after him and, somewhere around the three-quarter mark, realised that he should do his partner the courtesy of calling him for the run. Kirsten looked up, saw Cullinan steaming towards him at several knots per hour, and in desperation raced down to the other end - or rather tried to, only for Whittall to gather, not so cleanly, and break the stumps. SA 131/3.

SA had got to its 100 mark in 23.1 - and at least part of the credit should go to the normally tight Zimbabwe fielding. If the running between wickets was risk-prone, then the collection was comical - first Strang, then Whittall, letting the ball slip through their hands with the batsman nowhere in sight. Rather strange sight, this, in a team that is rated with SA in the fielding department. Added to which, Campbell opted for a defensive field, when his only hope of pegging SA back was to look for wickets, with the result that edges flew harmlessly through precisely those spots where catchers would normally have been stationed.

The SA batsmen are professional to the core - and given these conditions, they kept taking the singles that were there for the asking, thumping the occasional loose deliveries for more and keeping comfortably in touch with the run rate. Cullinan (35 off 50 with two fours), after playing the kind of strokes he alone among the SA batsmen can make, opted to hoik an innocuous one from Whittall over midon, when the whole off side was there for the placement, and Campbell took a fine diving catch at mid on to put SA at 154/4.

That brought Rhodes and Cronje together and, though two-three singles taken would have seen them back in the pavilion of Zimbabwe fielders had been on par, the two kept the score moving along at a brisk rate with some aggressive pushes and quick running, to take SA to 181 in 40 overs and well in sight of a win. Cronje (22 off 23 with three fours) then chose to hit all over a swinging full toss from Rennie - his third in three balls, incidentally - and found his off stump doing acrobatics, to reduce SA to 187/5. But Shaun Pollock coming in next, ensured that Zimbabwe didn't get up to any heroics with some calculated hitting that saw 26 runs plundered off just 18 balls with four fours and, in company with the busy Rhodes (not out 36 off 41 with one four) saw SA past the winning post with three overs to spare.

For SA, Brandes (1/51) and Streak (0/34) were the pick of the bowlers, while Rennie (2/51) had a bad day at the office, those figures notwithstanding. As for the support acts, Evans (0\21 in 4), Strang (0/26 in 7) and Whittall (0/42 in 8) would have impressed more if the field had been better organised and their line and length more tidy. In the event, as Campbell himself admitted after the game, the bowlers gave away on an average one bad ball per over, the fielders missed at least five certain chances (two catches, three possible run outs) and you don't do that against a team like RSA and still hope to stay in the game.

SA, then, as per usual in one day tournaments winning three out of three and off to a great start, while Zimbabwe has its work cut out from here on in, with one more game against SA on January 31, and two against India thereafter, to try and get a berth in the final.

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