Faf du Plessis and Hashim Amla struck unbeaten half-centuries as South Africa coasted to a nine-wicket victory at the Riverside Ground on Friday to dent Sri Lanka’s hopes of making it to the 2019 World Cup semi-finals.
Du Plessis and Co. not only grabbed a consolation win but also dished out a clinical display with both ball and bat as they emerged victorious by a comprehensꦯive margin.
Earlier, Sri Lanka hꦬad a disastrous start to🌜 their innings when captain Dimuth Karunaratne was caught at slip by Du Plessis off the first ball of the match, delivered by Kagiso Rabada.
Kusal Perera and Avishka Fernando😼 batted positively to take the score to 67 for one in the 10th over before Fernando mistimed a shot, sending the ball steepling into the air before it was taken by Du Plessis.
Perera was the next to go, chopping a Dwaine Pretorius delivery onto his stumps as Sri 𒊎Lanka slipped to 72/3 in the 12th♍ over.
Angelo Mathews was bowled by Morris for 11 and Kusal Mendis departed for 23. Every recognized batsman apart from Karunaratne reached doubl൩e-figures but no🅺ne went on to play big innings.
Brief Scores: South Africa 206 for 1 (du Plessis 96 not out, Amla 80 not out) beat Sri Lanka 203 ♊(Avishka 30, Pretorius 3 for 25, Morris 3 for 46) by nine wickets.
Here’s how Twitter reacted:
You see, this is how this team can dominate! This is exactly what they do in bilateral series'.
— Alviro Petersen (@AlviroPetersen)
South Africa v Sri Lanka:
World Cup 2015: SA won by 9 wickets
World Cup 2019: SA won by 9 wickets
— Sarang Bhalerao (@bhaleraosarang)
hum to doobe hain sanam, tumko bhi lekar doobenge – Faf to SL?
— Gaurav Kalra (@gauravkalra75)
South Africa wins. In the process helps England too. Well…South Africa has been helping English cricket for a while now. Nothin new ☺️🤗
— Aakash Chopra (@cricketaakash)
//twitter.com/hers𝄹hybru/status/1144551195236868096
SA too late SL too dismissive, overall an ꦏone sided-affair which had slight chancღes for the latter but that too vanished now.
— Reemma malhotrra (@ReemaMalhotra8)
South Africa to Sri Lanka.
— Sagar (@sagarcasm)
Radio silence 🙂😜
— Hemang Badani (@hemangkbadani)
