New Zealand suffered a batting collapse on Saturday (February 25) against South Africa in the third One-Day International (ODI) to lose by 159 runs and as a result, the visitors have now taken a 2-1 lead in the five-match series. Chasing 272, the hosts lost wickets at regular intervals right from the outset on a difficult surface at the Westpac Stadium in Wellington and were never in the hunt.
Tom Latham, who earlier missed an easy stumping chance during South Africa’s innings, departed for a duck in the second over. The left-hander has also been struggling for form of late and to add to his woes, he timed one straight to the point fielder. Kagiso Rabada, who was brought back for this game, struck in the third over, finding Dean Brownlie’s outside edge.
Losing the openers so early in the chase put them on the backfoot but New Zealand had two calm heads out in the middle in the form of Kane Williamson and Ross Taylor. South Africa would have had a third just two balls after Brownlie’s departure but Hashim Amla failed to latch on to a catch at slip to give Williamson a reprieve.
The first boundary of the innings finally came off the last ball of the sixth over when Taylor pulled Wayne Parnell over midwicket. While Rabada kept posing questions, using the surface to maximum effect by extracting more bounce, Williamson released the pressure with a six over fine leg off Parnell at the other end. The duo added 37 runs from 72 balls before South Africa struck again. Andile Phehlukwayo, who replaced Rabada, found plenty of seam movement to bring back one in that was chopped onto the stumps by Williamson.
With Dwaine Pretorius trapping Taylor leg-before-wicket in the very next over, New Zealand’s challenge effectively ended. The hosts lost half their side in the 17th over with Phehlukwayo striking again to remove Neil Broom, and this time Amla held on to the catch. Following Mitchell Santner’s dismissal, it was only a matter of time before South Africa completed the formalities. Colin de Grandhomme struck a couple of lusty blows and remained unbeaten until the end on 33 but the visitors cleaned up the tail with Pretorius finishing with terrific figures of 3 for 5 in 5.2 overs.
Earlier in the day, South Africa opted to bat first after winning the toss. While they replaced Chris Morris with Rabada, New Zealand dropped Ish Sodhi in favour of pacer Lockie Ferguson. Even though Quinton de Kock looked fluent from the start following a cover drive in the fourth over of the innings, Amla struggled for timing at the other end. Eventually, he fell for 7 off 19 after mistiming one to mid off. The wicketkeeper-batsman though was not bothered with the dismissal and smashed a six over deep square leg.
De Kock added 73 runs for the second wicket with Faf du Plessis, who looked fluent right from the start as well. Even though the track offered plenty of assistance for the bowlers, the duo managed to fight through to frustrate the hosts before de Grandhomme struck twice in the same over to peg back South Africa. Losing both the set batsmen in quick succession hurt the visitors big time as JP Duminy found the going tough. AB de Villiers got into his groove pretty early and became the fastest to 9000 ODI runs when he fetched a boundary by pulling one towards the midwicket region early in his innings.
But with Duminy, David Miller and Pretorius departing in quick time, South Africa found themselves in a spot of bother at 180 for 6. The onus was on the skipper to bat through the innings and he stood up yet again like he has done many times in the past. He had Parnell for company, who came up with a crucial 32-ball 35 to resurrect the South African innings. The duo added 84 runs off 64 balls as de Villiers shifted gears in the final few overs. Both de Villiers and Parnell fell in the final over of the innings but by then, they had done more than enough for their side go into the fourth ODI with a series lead.
Brief scores
South Africa 271/8 in 50 overs (AB de Villiers 85, Quinton de Kock 68; Colin de Grandhomme 2-40, Mitchell Santner 1-45) beat
New Zealand 112 in 32.2 overs (Colin de Grandhomme 34*; Dwaine Pretorius 3-5, Andile Phehlukwayo 2-12) by 159 runs.
 against South Africa in the third One-Day International (ODI) to lose by 159 runs and as a result, the visitors have now taken a 2-1 lead in the five-match series. Chasing 272, the hosts lost wickets at regular intervals right from the outset on a difficult surface at the Westpac Stadium in Wellington and were never in the hunt.){kind=link}