Instead of being rightfully dismissed for 76, Kane Williamson scored an undefeated 106 to take his team to victory.
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TELFORD VICE at Edgbaston
THEY’RE alive. Not at all rudely, but at least until Sunday they don’t have to shamble through the World Cup pretending to take it seriously.
Despite going down by four wickets to New Zealand at Edgbaston on Wednesday, South Africa still have a smidgen of a chance to reach the semi-finals.
They scrapped and scraped their way to 241/6, a total reduced by 50 or so runs by New Zealand’s bristling bowling and flinty fielding as much as by the overnight rain that soaked the outfield, delayed the start by 90 minutes and reduced the innings by an over each.
New Zealand replied with 245/6, an innings powered by Kane Williamson’s first World Cup century, a brilliant 106 not out.
The dream or the nightmare is thus deferred to South Africa’s match against Pakistan at Lord’s on Sunday, when the spectre of elimination will again need to be dispelled.
But they look a beaten team and will need a mental miracle to regroup in time to give of their best against one of the most dangerous teams in the game.
Wednesday’s match was what this World Cup has cried out for, a proper contest that marked a refreshing departure from the beige brigade of predictability we have seen so far — Bangladesh’s games excepted.
It could have swung any which of three ways for much of the afternoon and evening it endured, and very nearly did.
A pair of stoic innings kept it real, but Birmingham wasn’t big enough for both of them to claim the glory.
Hashim Amla picked up from scoring an unbeaten 41 off 83 balls against Afghanistan in Cardiff on Saturday with an 83-ball 55. Then another bearded wonder, Williamson, hung tough for 138 balls, a towering performance in the context of the match.
Things might have turned out starkly differently had Quinton de Kock, or any of his teammates, appealed when Williamson had a go at Imran Tahir’s last delivery of the match.
New Zealand’s captain was 76 not out and the total was 173/5 in the 38th over. And the gizmo’s graph showed a small, unseen, unheard spike at the crucial moment when ball passed bat.
Instead of being back in the hut, Williamson smashed Andile Phehlukwayo for six in the final over to go to his ton.
Rassie van der Dussen burnished his burgeoning reputation with an unbeaten 67 off 64 balls that made him the only South African with a strike rate of more than 100 on Wednesday.
Chris Morris removed Ross Taylor, Tom Latham and Jimmy Neesham from the equation in 10 inspired overs that took South Africa close to what would have been an inspiring win.
It was the kind of game where the lighthouses tower above the fog, and they were Amla, Williamson, Van der Dussen, Morris, and Colin de Grandhomme, who played with freedom than anyone else for his 60 off 47 balls.
That the pitch only added to the challenge was plain from the footmarks that were significant inside the first 10 overs.
But Amla and Faf du Plessis, Amla and Aiden Markram, and David Miller and van der Dussen found a way to come to terms with it and everything else they had to deal with to share half-century stands.
Williamson featured in all three of his team’s major partnerships — 60 with Martin Guptill, 57 with Neesham, and 91 with De Grandhomme.
Some matches transcend sport and become sagas of the soul, dramas of destiny, events the protagonists and everyone else who are attached to their heartstrings either can’t forget or never want to remember.
This was one of them. Sunday’s will be, too.
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