Ken Borland

South Africa’s top-order were dying slow deaths as they went in pursuit of a mediocre target of 134, before Aiden Markram and David Miller switched gears in the second half of the innings to carry the Proteas to a thrilling five-wicket victory with two balls to spare in their T20 World Cup match against India at the Perth Stadium on Sunday.

After a superb bowling display led by Lungi Ngidi and Wayne Parnell had restricted India to just 133/9, South Africa’s top-order was blown away by brilliant swing bowling up front. Whereas the Proteas had used pace and bounce to unsettle the batsmen, India showed tremendous skill up front with the new ball.

Outstanding young left-arm paceman Arshdeep Singh swung the ball away from Quinton de Kock (1), to have him well-caught by Lokesh Rahul at second slip, and two balls later he swung the ball into another left-hander, Rilee Rossouw, to trap him lbw for a duck.

Temba Bavuma’s lack of form meant he was unable to get a bat on many of the magnificent deliveries bowled to him by Arshdeep and Bhuvneshwar Kumar, and then attempted an ambitious scoop shot against Mohammed Shami and was neatly caught behind by Dinesh Karthik for 10.

South Africa were teetering on 24/3 and Markram and Miller almost looked like condemned men as they tried to weather the storm. They did well to stay in, but after 10 overs the score was just 40/3, meaning another 94 needed to be scored off the last 60 balls.

Markram decided to go for broke and, in a brave innings of 52 off 41 balls, he swung hard and shifted the momentum of the game, beating back the Indian bowlers. He should have been caught twice and Rohit Sharma also missed an easy run out chance, as he and Miller added 76 for the fourth wicket in 10 overs.

Miller was then left with the last 34 runs to score off 26 balls, and he once again showed his sheer class and skill at the death, steering the Proteas home with 59 not out off 46 balls.

India had chosen to bat first, and on a pitch offering steep bounce and plenty of pace, Ngidi set the cats amongst the pigeons as he reduced them to 49/5 in eight-and-a-half overs. The tall paceman used the bounce superbly, taking 4/29 in his four overs, and all four wickets came off shortish deliveries. But his line, just outside off stump with the occasional straighter delivery, was also outstanding.

Ngidi struck with just his second ball as Rohit (15) spliced a pull shot and the bowler took a return catch; Ngidi then ended his first over with the wicket of the other opener, Rahul (9) trying to steer the ball to third man but being caught at slip as the delivery got too big for him. Markram was practically standing on the fielding circle when he took the catch.

Virat Kohli counterpunched in scoring 12, but Ngidi then dismissed him, top-edging a hook to fine leg, where Kagiso Rabada took a good catch running around the boundary.

Rabada then took an absolute screamer, sprinting in from the fine leg boundary and diving forward to catch Hardik Pandya (2) off Ngidi.

With Anrich Nortje blasting out Deepak Hooda for a duck, India were crashing, but Suryakumar Yadav pulled the blue aeroplane out of its dive with a great innings, his 68 off 40 balls piloting them to a total that kept them in the match because of the strength of their own pace attack.

Left-arm seamer Parnell had done a fine job for the Proteas up front with the new ball, and he soared in the closing stages, taking 3/15 in his four overs, which included a maiden in the first over of the match.

Nortje (4-0-23-1) and Rabada (4-0-26-0) maintained the relentless pace pressure.

Gentle giant Lungi Ngidi was a ferocious beast with the ball on Sunday as he ripped India’s top-order apart, the Proteas restricting their opponents to a mediocre 133/9 in their T20 World Cup match at the Perth Stadium.

India had chosen to bat first, but on a pitch offering steep bounce and plenty of pace, Ngidi reduced them to 49/5 in eight-and-a-half overs. The tall paceman used the bounce superbly, taking 4/29 in his four overs, and all four wickets came off shortish deliveries. But his line, just outside off stump with the occasional straighter delivery, was also outstanding.

Ngidi struck with just his second ball as Rohit Sharma (15) spliced a pull shot and the bowler took a return catch; Ngidi then ended his first over with the wicket of the other opener, Lokesh Rahul (9) trying to steer the ball to third man but being caught at slip as the delivery got too big for him. Aiden Markram was practically standing on the fielding circle when he took the catch.

Virat Kohli counterpunched in scoring 12, but Ngidi then dismissed him, top-edging a hook to fine leg, where Kagiso Rabada took a good catch running around the boundary.

Rabada then took an absolute screamer, sprinting in from the fine leg boundary and diving forward to catch Hardik Pandya (2) off Ngidi.

With Anrich Nortje blasting out Deepak Hooda for a duck, India were crashing, but Suryakumar Yadav pulled the blue aeroplane out of its dive with a great innings, his 68 off 40 balls piloting them to a total that keeps them in the match because of the strength of their own pace attack.

Left-arm seamer Wayne Parnell had done a fine job for the Proteas up front with the new ball, and he soared in the closing stages, taking 3/15 in his four overs, which included a maiden in the first over of the match.

Nortje (4-0-23-1) and Rabada (4-0-26-0) maintained the relentless pace pressure.

The last time the Proteas played against Bangladesh in white-ball cricket was earlier this year when Bangladesh shocked them by winning the ODI series in South Africa, so there is a pace attack that is highly-motivated to do some damage when the two teams meet in the T20 World Cup in Sydney on Thursday.

The Proteas and Bangladesh were meant to play a warm-up game before the tournament, but that was washed out, and the rain then also forced South Africa’s opening match against Zimbabwe to be abandoned without a result. Given their experience in last year’s T20 World Cup, where they lost just their opening game but missed out on the semi-finals on nett run-rate, the Proteas know they have to win all four of their remaining matches to make sure they progress.

“Last year we learnt that every game is so important and we’ve wrapped our heads around having to win everything from here on in to give us the best chance of qualifying for the semis,” paceman Lungi Ngidi said on Wednesday.

“We’re definitely hungry to win, but every team is under pressure. The last time we played against Bangladesh, their batsmen came out pretty aggressively against us. So we will definitely target their top-order.

“They have Shakib al-Hasan to control the middle, but if we cut off the head of the snake up front, then hopefully we can restrict them to as low a total as possible.

“We will play towards our strengths and we have seen that pace has been most successful so far in the tournament. So we would like to attack them with our strength and we will see how they handle that tomorrow [Thursday],” Ngidi said.

The skilful 26-year-old also did not want to sell the Proteas bowling line-up short, saying they embraced talk about them possibly being the best pace attack in the world.

“For people to say we have the best attack in the world is an honour and privilege for us, it gives us lots of confidence as well,” Ngidi said. “It means we can walk with our heads held high.

“It also means we really want to showcase what we have. We have three or four seamers and everyone is better at something than someone else

“It makes the job a lot easier because it becomes pretty difficult with two seamers having to do everything.

“That gives the bowlers the sense of calm and confidence that’s needed in a tournament like this,” Ngidi said.

Unfortunately, there is a high probability of a lunchtime thundershower in Sydney putting a dampener on the Proteas’ efforts once again.

Play starts at 5am.

Cricket South Africa have questioned the timing of former Australian captain Tim Paine’s allegations that the Proteas were also doing illegal work on the ball now that the great ball-tampering scandal of 2018 is back in the news.

Paine inherited the captaincy after Steve Smith was suspended, but stood down in November last year after it was revealed the married cricketer had been sending explicit messages to a Cricket Tasmania employee.

Paine’s autobiography, The Price Paid, was released on Tuesday and his shock accusations will obviously be great publicity for the book. Paine accuses the Proteas of ball-tampering even after Australia’s skulduggery with sandpaper was exposed at Newlands in the third Test, and David Warner, Cameron Bancroft and Smith were sent home in disgrace.

“I saw it happen in the fourth Test of that series. Think about that. After everything that had happened in Cape Town, after all the headlines and bans and carry-on,” Paine writes.

“I was standing at the bowlers’ end in the next Test when a shot came up on the screen of a South African player at mid-off having a huge crack at the ball.

“The television director, who had played an active role in catching out Cam, immediately pulled the shot off the screen.

“We went to the umpires about it, which might seem a bit poor, but we’d been slaughtered and were convinced they’d been up to it since the first Test. But the footage got lost. As it would,” Paine complained.

CSA chief executive Pholetsi Moseki told The Citizen it was upsetting that none of these allegations were made at the time of the numerous investigations that were held, and are now only appearing four-and-a-half years later.

“CSA and Cricket Australia have engaged on this matter and the necessary sanctions levied at the time. Both bodies have reiterated their commitment to a clean game, … above reproach,” Moseki said on Tuesday.

“It is unfortunate that allegations of ball-tampering are emerging at this stage, which information could have been useful had it come out at the time when the rot in the game was being rooted out.

“While CSA respects the rights of individuals to air their opinions, it also calls upon all those who love the game to come forward with any information of misconduct on the field at the appropriate time, and not wait for time to elapse. This will assist the relevant authorities within the system to investigate and institute appropriate relevant sanctions should they be required,” Moseki said.

Without their sandpaper, Australia’s attack in the fourth Test at the Wanderers had as much venom as a granny doing flower-arranging as the Proteas piled up 488 and 344/6 declared. Australia’s batting was equally lame as they crashed to 221 and 119 all out to be thrashed by 492 runs.