Marco Jansen's four-fer and Aiden Markram's heroics power Proteas past Black Caps

Proteas captain Aiden Markram has placed his team's one-foot in the ICC T20 World Cup Super Eights at Ahmedabad on Saturday evening. 

Markram was in sublime form, stroking 86 not out (44 balls, 8x4, 4x6) to put the New Zealand attack to the sword, as the Proteas comfortably chased down the Black Caps’ 175/7 to win by seven wickets. The Proteas have a full house six points from three matches and need only to avoid a heavy defeat to UAE in the final Group D match next Wednesday to confirm progression.

The skipper, who had earlier won the toss and elected to insert the Kiwis, struck the ball gloriously through the covers. He also struck an elegant straight six, showing off the full face of the bat, but the shot of the day was undoubtedly when muscled a rising ball over long-on for a six.

Dale Steyn purred on commentary, calling it “bully shot”, as Markram rubberstamped the Proteas’ dominance through a 19-ball half-century. 

Quinton de Kock, who became the first South African to pass 3 000 T20I runs, added a brisk 20 off 14 balls (3x4, 1x6), that played a part in the Proteas scorching to 83/1 at the conclusion of the Powerplay - their highest score within the first six overs at a T20 World Cup.

De Kock, Ryan Rickelton (21 off 11 balls) and Dewald Brevis (21 off 17 balls) all made tidy contributions, although if the Proteas were greedy, they would have wanted Brevis to spend a bit more time at the crease ahead of the business stage of the competition approaching. 

However, the major positive the Proteas will take from this clinical victory was the performance of their bowling unit. 

After the mid-week chaos against Afghanistan where the Proteas were guilty of sending down 11 wides and two costly no-balls from Kagiso Rabada in the final over of the regular match, the bowling unit were much more disciplined. 

In fact, it was a perfect performance with the only extra being a single leg-bye conceded, and there's no doubt Rabada would be the most relieved to now put the Afghan horror show firmly behind him.

Although Rabada did not pick up a wicket on the night, his rhythm and resultant lengths were much better and could count himself unlucky to have picked up at least a couple. 

Instead, the wickets were gobbled up by the Marco Jansen. The lanky seamer grabbed 4/40 to curtail a New Zealand innings that had threatened to run away at 138/4 in the 14th over.

Jansen claimed two wickets in the Powerplay, and then returned to pick up a further two, including New Zealand’s top-scorer Mark Chapman (48 off 26 balls) that pulled the rug out of the Kiwis' batting effort. 

"Obviously we know it's a good wicket and the opening batters especially showed some great intent against us. So, we knew we were going to have some other plan," Jansen said.

"I think the slow balls into the wicket worked well and then obviously the yorkers on the wicket. So it was good to see you have to change it up and adapt, I guess. And I think that that really worked.

"Obviously winning the World Cup is not easy. And then there's like today, you just take it as it comes and days where it's not your day, you just try and adapt and try to make the best out of it. 

"I think the bowlers are doing really well. Our seamers also complement each other really well. I think the plan here was really good and yeah, really skilful. Enjoying every moment, but there will be new challenges coming."

ICC T20 WORLD CUP, GROUP D

New Zealand: 175/7 (Chapman 48, Mitchell 32, Jansen 4/40)

South Africa: 178/3 (Markram 86*, Miller 24, Ravindra 1/9)

South Africa won by 7 wickets