South Africa defeat West Indies by 8 wickets, Nortje bags MoM award

South Africa vs West Indies, 18th Match, Group 1, Dubai (DSC), Oct 26 2021

Match Result: South Africa won by 8 wickets (with 10 balls remaining)

Player of the Match: Anrich Nortje

Match Report: West Indies were beaten 2-3 at home a few months ago and South Africa have beaten them here at the World Cup too. They had sealed the victory with the ball in hand literally. Reeza Hendricks was too good at the top order. Looked neat with his shots even against spin and he never gave West Indies an opportunity to come back while RVD dropped anchor.

The chase wasn’t big. Hendricks was going well, so RVD could afford to  play slow. Markram came in and took over when West Indies got the rate up with a few dots. Hayden Walsh’s 16-run 3rd over hurt West Indies badly. Hosein didn’t have great control too.

Every time West Indies were trying to come back in the match, Markram took the journey to and over the fence to deny that. In the end he recorded a 25-ball brilliantly paced fifty – the fastest of this edition. RVD got a few shots too to ensure they win with 10 balls to spare.

Temba Bavuma | South Africa captain: “Much better than our first game. We knew the areas we had to improve on, more particularly our batting, our bowling was outstanding. Good day for us. I think the conversations we have on the field are a lot shorter, a lot clearer on what to do, and they (Rabada and Nortje) pass on information to other bowlers as well.

Their knowledge has been a positive one for us. We were all watching that (ENG v WI) game, but weren’t sure how the wicket was going to react, so we thought Aiden could have a go and he did well. Those are the types of performance we are looking forward to from our batters, Aiden is hitting the ball really well at the moment.

I guess a bit of both (got in the way and inspired), when the news (of de Kock) hit us, it did kind of take us back a bit as a team. Losing a guy like Quinny.. he plays a vital role in the team, not only with the bat but as a senior player, but with Klaasen coming in it was an opportunity for him.

At the end of the day it was another game of cricket to play for our country and we had to make sure we lived up to that. The guys have been playing with their hearts and would have left everything out there and as the tournament goes on that’s what we are looking for.”

Anrich Nortje | Player of the Match: “100 percent, it’s (playing IPL in the UAE) helped me quite a lot. It’s helped us as well being able to give some information to the team on conditions, that’s probably the situation for all the players in all the teams.

Just having the confidence of knowing the conditions and understanding what to do, when to do it definitely has helped me coming here. It was a good wicket, similar to the IPL, playing around with the ball with the grip –

Definitely it brings in some extra variation and something else to the bowlers. It’s always nice working with him (Rabada), his ideas and knowledge about game in the situation.”