West Indies Vs South Africa, Super Eights

South Africa kicked West Indies out of the world cup. We have one question for Brian Lara after this defeat: What was the deal with the last powerplay? Why didn't Lara take the third powerplay? Did he forget? was it intentional? or was he hoping that the umpires would forget? Whatever the case might be, the way WI played, they did not deserve to get ahead in this tournament. Their game, barring the game against Pakistan, has been very insipid. The team has been playing very bad cricket. They knew going into this game that this was a make or break game for them. If that doesn't inspire a team to pick it up a notch then the team doesn't deserve to win.

However insipid WI played, AB DeVilliers played an inspired knock and in the process hit his first ODI century. More importantly, from S. African point of view, batted himself into form. In a space of 14 balls, AB scored about 50 runs (when he went from somewhere in his nineties to 144). It was a brilliant batting display and he knocked the stuffing out the West Indian bowling attack. The knock against SA is that they play a very formulaic brand of cricket and that their cricket lacks flairs. But this in this match, SA's batting display was all about flair. It had a very unkallisque like batting from Kallis who hit another half century (81 runs in 86 balls). Seems like all the criticism seems to have gotten under the big man's skin.

There is not much to say about West Indian batting. Chris Gayle flattered to deceive, Lara failed, Chanderpaul failed, Sarwan played the 'Captain on the sinking ship's deck' even though he is not the Captain, and that was that.

The match was over by the time SA's innings ended. A very one-sided match and a boring one too. Andre Nel was not dropped despite our recommendation. South Africa is going to pay for that. Soon.