Proteas cruise to series victory

THE Standard Bank Proteas cruised to a seven-wicket victory with 18 overs to spare to take a winning 3-0 lead over Sri Lanka in the Momentum ODI Series with two matches still to be played. They now have the chance to complete their second clean sweep this season with victories in the two remaining matches at PPC Newlands on Tuesday and at SuperSport Park next Friday. Earlier this season they also had a 5-0 series sweep against Australia. They have also won 12 ODIs in a row on home soil which constitutes a South African record.
For Sri Lanka it was a repeat of what has happened throughout the series with their batsmen again failing to post a total in excess of 200 under batting conditions that suggested they needed to put at least 250 on the board after being sent into bat. They again started with a good opening stand of 60 between Niroshan Dickwella (74 off 80 balls, 7 fours) and his captain, Upul Tharanga (31 off 45 balls, 5 fours) but thereafter there was no consolidation and they lost their last 7 wickets for 48 runs to set the Proteas a meagre target of 164.
With Lahiru Kumara back in the side to give their attack some teeth they gave one of their better bowling performances of the series but they were unable to apply consistent pressure with such a small total to defend.After the loss of three cheap wickets AB de Villiers and JP Duminy finished off the job with an unbroken fourth wicket stand of 72 in 13.2 overs which allowed the Proteas captain just enough time to complete his half-century (60 not out off 61 balls, 5 fours). He has now made 706 runs in 10 innings at the Wanderers for an average of 100.85 (3 centuries and 3 50s) with a strike rate in the region of 130.
Faf du Plessis celebrated his 100th appearance by taking yet another sensational catch while Quinton de Kock also took a very good reaction catch to dismiss Dickwella and complete 100 dismissals in ODI cricket. Dwaine Pretorius, who was given a run with Wayne Parnell being rested, returned career best figures of 3/19 to be named Momentum Man of the Match.