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South Africa made a forced change in their side just before their clash against West Indies. The forced change was their start batter Quinton de Kock who had refused to take a knee as a part of Black Lives Movement which led to him being available for the selection. However, the Proteas did not miss the services of the wicketkeeper-batter and registered their first win of ICC T20 World Cup 2021 by eight wickets over defending champions West Indies.
Impressive Hendricks, Markram seals the deal
Replacing De Kock, Reeza Hendricks pounced on the opportunity with a 39-run knock in run chase of 144. Despite skipper Temba Bavuma losing his wicket in the first over, Hendricks carried on and shared a 57-run partnership for the second wicket. The opener faced 30 deliveries for his 39 and hit four fours and one six. Rassie van der Dussen played the role of anchor but consumed too many deliveries and scored just three boundaries in his unbeaten 43-run knock off 51 deliveries. Aiden Markram turned out to be game-changer as he scored with strike rate of 196.15. He got to his half-century off the penultimate delivery of the match. His match-winning knock included two fours and four sixes.
Simmons’ dreadful stay at the crease
Lendl Simmons had a horrible outing against South Africa. Simmons looked out of touch as Evin Lewis fired from the other end. Simmons could score only 16 runs from 35 runs at a strike rate of 45.71. He even struggled to push the ball in the gaps and lost his balance. His innings came to an end with a blind slog off Kagiso Rabada as his wickets got knocked over. This is the joint-most deliveries taken by a batter in T20 World Cup without scoring a boundary.
Good start but another collapse
Despite Simmons’ slow knock, Lewis was at this best hitting as many as six sixes in his 35-ball 56. The southpaw got out in the 11th over of the innings. Instead of accelerating on a solid foundation, West Indies’ innings went downhill as they could post a total of 143/8. Nicholas Pooran, Chris Gayle and Kieron Pollard got starts but could not go on. Even sending Pooran ahead of Gayle did not work. Big-hitters including Andre Russell, Shimron Hetmyer and Dwayne Bravo disappointed and got out for scores of 5, 1 and 8 respectively.
