TheSportsCampus

SOUTH AFRICA maintained their unbeaten run in the triangular A team tournament when they beat Sri Lanka A by 7 wickets with an impressive 17 balls to spare in the final league match at the P Sara Stadium, Colombo, on Saturday.

It was a dead rubber match with both teams having already qualified for Monday's 50 overs final and national coach Corrie van Zyl used the opportunity to give CJ de Villiers his first run of the tournament and to give Heino Kuhn the chance to open the batting.
Neither player disappointed with De Villiers having the impressive return of 1/28 in 8 overs while Kuhn became the team's latest centurion (101 runs off 108 balls with 10 fours).
Kuhn's partnership with captain Dean Elgar of 102 for the 3rd wicket set up the South African chase to the extent that they only needed to score at a run a ball for the last 12 overs once Kuhn was dismissed.

It goes almost without saying that Elgar finished off the job in style in partnership with Colin Ingram. Elgar has been the player of the tour and on this occasion he contributed an unbeaten 79 off 91 balls (4 fours and 3 sixes).

The unbroken fourth wicket partnership was one of great maturity as the two left-handers scored at a rate of 8.61 runs to the over. In the process Elgar completed 1 500 List A runs while Ingram took his average to an impressive 43 in this format of the game.

What was particularly impressive was the way the top order chased down the victory target of 255. Batting second against totals in excess of 250 on the sub-continent is no mean feat, particularly for a side that has limited experience in this region of the cricketing world.

Some of the players, notably Elgar, have excelled throughout the tour but what has also been impressive has been the way others have lifted their games. Thandi Tshabalala has been a good example, bringing his economy rate steadily down and also taking important wickets.

Sri Lanka, who won the toss, owed their competitive total to an unbeaten century by regular Test opener, Tharanga Paranavitana (116 off 139 balls with 7 fours and 2 sixes).
Even though they only lost 4 wickets, the Sri Lanka batsmen were never able to cut loose and were restricted to 83 in the last 12 overs.