It's as if they decide to take turns to play hero everytime they bat. With the exception of De Kock, the top order has been merciless. The Proteas brought the Irish back to earth after a fantastic allround performance today. Faff & Amla benefitted from Ireland's mistakes on the field & went on to scoring a hundred each. The bowler is a fool if he mistook Amla for a soft harmless soul. You will not have realised it even after he has ground your bowling to dust.
When Faff fell in the 39th over it was time for the I-can-do-no-wrong man to take over. Luckily for the Irish, AB didn't stay long else they would have had to chase somewhere around 500. Having said that, Miller & Rossouw are no pushovers with the bat & they just showed that. Both finished with strike rates of 200! Kevin O'Brien for once felt how it was to be clobbered around & his bowling card made dismal reading.
Nothing much to write about the Irish batting - it was too big a task to accomplish. Balbirnie's 58 (71) & Kevin O'Brien's 48 (65) were never going to be sufficient & Ireland were bowled out for 210 in 45 overs.A fantastic finish for the Proteas & this result lets Pakistan to breathe a bit easy. The 3rd & 4th places are up for grabs in Pool B & from now on the calculators are going to be out & for once the Proteas can relax with the math :-)