Lewis lays into SA attack in WI win

“You can’t improve your skill in a couple of hours.” - Temba Bavuma

Telford Vice | Cape Town

EVIN Lewis hits the ball hard enough to risk being charged with intent to do serious harm. Except that he hammers his runs as sweetly as if he were unspooling the lines of a sonnet.

If he’s going to get into trouble for visiting violence on opponents, he has a sure-fire defence in that he does it with as much grace as muscle. His 71 in Grenada on Saturday flew off 35 balls. Fifty-eight of his runs — almost 82% — arrived in fours and sixes. It was as dominant a display of clean, calculated hitting as the small but enthusiastic crowd could hope to see, and it sealed West Indies domination of the match.

They prevailed by eight wickets with five overs to spare. With the next of the five games starting less than 24 hours after André Russell settled the issue with a booming six over midwicket off Lungi Ngidi, there isn’t much time for the South Africans to find answers to the many questions asked of them. As Temba Bavuma said afterwards, “You can’t improve your skill in a couple of hours.”

Rassie van der Dussen’s 38-ball 56 not out was all that gave South Africa a fighting chance. Not much of a chance: in the only other T20I played at this ground, in January 2020, Ireland batted first and made 208/7. The 160/6 the visitors put up on Saturday was puny by comparison.

Quinton de Kock had seemed certain to add significantly to the undefeated 141 and 96 he scored in the Test series in St Lucia before he holed out to midwicket off André Russell for 37 off 24 balls. Bavuma had clipped 22 off 20 when he hoisted Fabian Allen to deep midwicket. Nobody else reached 20. South Africa failed to score off 37, or almost a third, of the legal deliveries they faced. You don’t win too many T20Is batting like that.

But you will win more than your fair share if your bowlers master subtlety like the West Indians. Obed McCoy’s back-of-the-hand slower ball had the batters guessing like desperados in a crooked casino, while Dwayne Bravo’s off-cutter plunged below the eyeline as emphatically as swallows dipping out of the summer sky.

Van der Dussen’s effort took the edge off all that, but not for long. Lewis took guard needing 11 runs to reach 1,000 runs in T20Is. He roared past the milestone in five balls, the first of which — from George Linde — he sent soaring over backward square leg for six.

Lewis’ 50 was up off the 22nd ball he faced: from Lungi Ngidi, who disappeared down the ground, easy as you like, for another six. Two balls Ngidi ran out Lewis’ partner, André Fletcher, with a direct hit from mid-off, to end the opening stand at 85 in the eighth over.

An unflustered Lewis stayed until the 12th over, when he laid maybe half a bat on a delivery from Tabraiz Shamsi and was caught at long-off.

The depth of the hole South Africa had fallen into was apparent in the 11th over, when Bavuma called Reeza Hendricks to bowl. Never in his 139 T20s before Saturday had Hendricks marked out a run-up, and it showed. Chris Gayle launched his first off-spin offering over his head for six. The second cleared the midwicket fence for another half-dozen. Lewis dispatched the fifth ball over long-off for the third six of an over that cost 21 runs; the most expensive of the match. In Hendricks’ defence the game had been won and lost by then.

Four overs later it was indeed over, with the Windies reaping almost 80% of their reply in boundaries. But the South Africans’ respite will be brief. Same time, same place on Sunday? You bet. And, this time, bring your A game.

First published by Cricbuzz.