Records tumble as South Africa annihilate England
After England squeaked through the first Twenty20 match against South Africa by one run, the home side completely obliterated the tourists in the second encounter. Setting the second highest international Twenty20 score ever, 241-6 the South Africans never gave England a chance in this match, eventually winning by a huge 84 run deficit.
There were changes for both sides, looking ahead to the rest of the tour I presume, as the home team drafted in Jacques Kallis, Heino Kuhn and Yusuf Abdulla for Johan Botha, Mark Boucher and Charl Langeveldt. Kevin Pietersen made a shock return to the England team after he tourists had injury problems with Captain Paul Collingwood and Graeme Swann. Adil Rashid was also drafted in, with Alastair Cook taking over the captaincy.
It was in form openers Graeme Smith and Loots Bosman that South Africa really took the attack to the English bowlers. After looking in good knick in Friday’s match they carried on their good form, but took it to a new, quite astonishing level. They put on 170 for the first wicket, the biggest partnership in international Twenty20 history and hit 13 fours and 15 sixes between them. In fact Bosman’s 9 sixes was only one behind Chris Gayle’s record of 10 in an innings. Bosman also hit the fifth best Twenty20 score, just falling short of a century on 94.
Smith eventually fell for 88 off 44 balls, with Joe Denly taking his first international wicket. Albie Morkel’s 14 was only scored in boundaries but was soon removed by Pietersen. Luke Wright was the man to finally oust Bosman, but the damage had already been done. Even so AB De Villiers rubbed salt into the wound with a fluent 24 late on to set the imposing total.
To say most of England’s bowlers were expensive is a bit of an understatement. Let’s go through each one individually. James Anderson was the stand out bowler, taking 1-28 and showing the rest of the attack how to bowl at international level. Wright did get hit for 40 runs off 4 overs but he was still the second best bowler! Tim Bresnan opened up with Anderson but couldn’t find Jimmy’s consistency as he got slapped for 48. I have a feeling Saj Mahmood’s recall to the team may be very brief, after he was hit for a huge 61 off just four overs, just terrible bowling. Rashid also took a right pasting, 25 runs came off his solitary over including two sixes apiece for Smith and Bosman. Denly and Pietersen came in and did a job but we won’t see a great deal of their bowling for the rest of the tour.
Knowing they had a ridiculously tough chase on their hands the batsman at the top of the order knew they needed to make big scores. In all fairness to them the top four batsmen were the top scorers but they just didn’t have the same fire power Smith and Bosman possessed. If you just look at the boundary count, it’s plain to see why the South African’s came out on top here. The hosts hit a total of 19 fours and an astonishing 17 sixes, while the tourists hit 13 fours and 6 sixes. That’s not too bad an effort by the English batsmen, but in this game it just wasn’t enough.
Denly will be happy to get off the mark against the Saffers as he made 14, opening with Cook who made 26. England’s best stand of 52 came between the South African born players Jonathan Trott and Pietersen. Trott hit a well deserved fifty while Pietersen looked in good form with an assured 29. For me, if England are to have any success on this tour this pairing, along with Andrew Strauss will have to play out of their skin as they are the only batsmen who have the real consistency to cause problems to the Saffers attack.
Wickets fell regularly in this chase and none of the South African bowlers went for more than 10 an over, only Anderson and Denly could do this for England. Dale Steyn’s return to form, 2-29, after his pasting on Friday was a high note for South Africa, who will be extremely positive ahead of the ODI series.
