Durban: Kiwis to Take on The Proteas in First T20

Despite injuries ruling out Trent Boult, Corey Anderson, Ross Taylor and Mitchell Santner, the Black Caps showed in sharing a Twenty20 series, which ended on Sunday, that they are capable of mounting a strong challenge.

Behardien holed out to long on for 36, and then David Wiese was out for two in the next over.

Guptill smashed three sixes and 6 fours as he bludgeoned 60 from 35 balls to steer the vacationers to 177 for seven.

While other sports continue to grow at a rapid rate and expand their global footprint, cricket chooses to remain insular time and time again.

AB de Villiers was on eight when he pulled viciously at a delivery from Jimmy Neesham. De Villiers’ near miss however, was the prelude to SA losing six wickets for 93 runs and dwindling to a reply of 145/8. By then New Zealand were well into their collapse after Grant Elliott had holed out the over before. That isn’t entirely their fault because Rossouw and Behardien are far less experienced at worldwide level than the men they are replacing.

Sunday’s game was a case in point.

“The guys did a fantastic job with the ball and were great in the field”, Guptill said.

The dissolution of the worldwide Cricket Council’s admittedly imperfect future tours programme means supporters can’t even pretend that this odd plug-in is part of a four-year, home-and-away structure – a “big picture”.

After starting at 63 without loss through the first seven overs in the First T20, New Zealand quickly collapsed as Phangiso, 20-year-old Kagiso Rabada and David Wiese took two wickets each and the Proteas held New Zealand to only 88 more.

He didn’t complete it, but his haul of 3/30 was another impressive line on a rapidly swelling curriculum vitae.

So the stats may suggest that the home side is clearly at an advantage but at the end of the day they are just numbers and can be misleading. All too briefly from SA’s perspective. Some players don’t like crossing lines between formats. “We know we have the batting firepower to cash in on situations like that and weren’t quite able to get on top of them”.

Martin Guptill is confident that his team can repeat the feat of 2013 when they went on to win their first One-Day worldwide series in South Africa.

New Zealand will not want the unsafe de Villiers to open as he is capable of changing the course of the game in a matter of minutes. visitors need to win the second T20 and gather some confidence.