South Africa Beat England In First One-dayer; Become Number One

South Africa has finally started claiming what should have been theirs a long time back. The number one spot in International cricket. And with the win in the second ODI against England, the Proteans are the first side to be ranked no. 1 in all the three formats of the game. Yet again the had Hashim Amla and their bowlers to thank as the English side got pushed aside this time without much of a fight.

Opting to bat first, the visitors piled up 287 in their quota of overs. After an 89 run opening partnership South Africa kept making steady progress towards a big score through small yet important partnerships. Amla was common to each of these partnerships as he got dismissed just 2 deliveries short of the fiftieth over. The run machine scored 150 runs in 125 deliveries. The rest of the batsmen played bit parts around him, with Graeme Smith getting to a half century. Samit Patel was the only bowler to have any semblance of control on the batsmen, but he too failed to pick up any wicket.

In reply, England lost their captain Cook for a duck, thus continuing his run of poor scores of late. As has been the case so often, Trott and Bell threatened for some time, but got dismissed in close succession after a 60 run partnership. Morgan coming back to international cricket after a substantial break could not keep the scoreboard ticking, and it was only Samit Patel who injected some urgency into the batting. The burly left arm spinning allrounder scored 45, but that was not to be enough in the face of some disciplined allround bowling effort by the South Africans. Parnell, Morkel and Peterson got two wickets each, while the rest of the bowlers barring Ryan Mclaren got one each. England capitulated to 207 all out in 40 overs itself and need to pull up their socks immediately if they want to challenge a highly confident side with all the momentum.