England v South Africa

The Crucial Fix

The super eight league match played on Tuesday was between South Africa and England. The match held importance for both the teams. A win for South Africa would ensure their berth in the semi finals of the cricket world cup. Their position would be secured and would not have to wait for the outcome of other matches to decide their fate. On the other hand a defeat for England would ensure their exit from the tournament. The match was a do or die situation for both the teams. The crowd was in full swing and the English barmy army was also gracing the occasion to pull up the spirit of the team.

Coin rolled in favor of Vaughn

The English skipper Michael Vaughn won the toss and elected to bat first. The decision was frowned upon by many experts as the pitch was anticipated to be very lively. The surface was green and was expected to support the pace bowlers. The pitch promised a good amount of bounce and some lateral movement. Batting in the early hours of the match was going to be definitely difficult. But England took the decision taking into consideration the slowness of the pitch in the later part of the match.

English openers failed again

The English openers again failed to give a good start to the innings. The English captain continued with his poor run at the world cup. The opening pair could only accumulate 9 runs from 7.3 overs. Not only they failed to give a big partnership but they slowed down the run rate to a greater extent. First to depart was Ian Bell after scoring 7 runs from 23 balls. Next to follow was the skipper on a score of 17 runs from 38 balls. After both the openers left England was trotting at 37 runs for the loss of 2 wickets in 12.2 overs. With addition of another 16 runs middle order bat Kevin Pietersen was picked up by Andre Nel on the score of 3 runs from 15 balls. England was in great jeopardy with just 53 runs for the loss of 3 wickets in 16.2 overs.

Some stability restored

After the loss of 3 wickets Andrew Strauss and Paul Collingwood took charge of the situation. They very cautiously saw each ball through and played them according to the merit. They were slowly bailing the team out of the crisis. They piled up a partnership of 58 runs to take the score past the 100 run mark. This partnership was broken by Jacques Kallis by picking up Andrew Strauss on a score of 46 runs from 67 balls. At this juncture England was rallying at a score of 111 runs for the loss of 4 wickets in 32.4 overs.

Tame submission of the lower order….

After the partnership of Strauss and Collingwood was broken the rest of the batting line up could not put up any resistance. The South African pacer Andrew Hall demolished the rest of the English batting line up with his agile bowling. His accurate line and length combined with the pace and bounce took the batsmen for a ride. Paul Collingwood was the first prey of Hall. He was trapped before the wicket after scoring 30 runs from 57 balls. The disgraced vice captain Andrew Flintoff scored just 5 runs from 10 balls. The tail simply refused to wag and from 111 runs for the loss of 3 wickets they were reduced to 121 runs for the loss of 8 wickets. They lost 5 wickets with scoring just 10 runs at the space of 5 overs. Ravi Bopara did put a valiant effort to remain not out and scoring a significant 27 runs from 44 balls. England finished their innings on a score of 154 runs in 48 overs.