Cricket Blog

The first match of the Super Eight ended in a close finish, with the Daniel Vettori led Kiwis winning by 10 runs. And did he lead, by god. The man has grown a lot in cricket, and it was all evident as he wound a magical spell around the top Indian batsmen known to be the best players of spin. More on that later.

New Zealand lost the toss and were asked to bat first. The Indian bowlers did a terrific job to restrict the Kiwis from exploding as the wickets kept on falling at regular intervals. At 91-5 only Craig McMillan and Jacob Oram were the recognised batsmen left. And did they make the Indians pay? The last 5 overs cost 78 runs. McMillan smashed 44 from only 23 balls and Oram got 35 from 15. New Zealand ended up with 190 runs where they should have not got more than 160. For India, Harbhajan Singh was the best bowler as his 4 overs cost only 24 runs and he picked up 2 wickets. The most expensive bowlers were RP Singh (4-0-29-2), Sreesanth (3-0-37-1), Yuvraj Singh (3-0-38-1) and Ajit Agarkar (4-0-40-0).

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South Africa defeated Sri Lanka by a comfortable 7 wickets and 7 balls to spare. Number 7 was also lucky for the Sri Lankans in their win over the Kiwis. South Africa won the toss and elected to field first, again. The Bangladeshis did not start of well and were in all sorts of trouble at 34-3 with the skipper, Mohammad Ashraful, gone for only 10 runs that already included 1 four and 1 six.

The Proteas kept the pressure up and wickets continued to fall, however, 144 runs were scored in the end. Pollock was the most successful and expensive bowlers. His 3.3 overs cost 40 runs and he picked up 3 wickets. Ntini also went for quite a few - 31 runs from 2 overs. The best bowler was JJ van der Wath who gave away a measly 13 runs from 4 overs and got a wicket. Aftab Ahmad was the top scorer for Bangladesh, smashing 36 runs from only 14 balls with 5 fours and 2 sixes.

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