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England surrender meekly to South Africa, score 154 all out

By Staff

Bridgetown, Barbados, Apr 17 (UNI) Andrew Hall wrecked havoc with a five wicket haul as South Africa shot out England for a paltry 154 in their do-or-die Super Eights league match of the cricket World Cup at Kensington Oval here today.

Hall's best bowling performance (5/18) killed the match decisively and along with Andre Nel's three wicket, including the prized one of Kevin Pitersen, swung the tie completely in favour of South Africa as England middle and lower orders caved in, giving Greame Smith's side a victory target of 155 to book a semi-final clash against Australia at St Lucia on April 25.

If nothing miraculous happens in the next half, England can make arrangement to book their return ticket home to make fresh preparations for the upcoming West Indies series amid growing calls of regime change. This was their worst World Cup campaign.

So pathetic was the England performance throughout their innings that the match, which promised to be a blockbuster knock out amid sell out crowd, was all over within the first ten overs itself.

After that it was just a matter of time before South Africa wind up and return back to score those runs as quickly as possible.

South Africa found an unlikely hero in Hall who sliced through the England lower middle order picking up five wickets and giving South Africa the smallest total to chase in this World Cup. He proved to be the ultimate weapon and justified his inclusion in the team in place of Makhaya Ntini.

England seemed to have forgotten that they were playing a one-day match, adopting Test match strategy as if they were saving a match by playing out the remaining overs.

They hardly showed any aggression to a bowling attack, which surprisingly did not show any venom except a few occasional bouncers rising sharply from good length.

England top order once again crumbled as the opening duo failed after 10 overs of struggle that tells the whole story of their batting prowess. Michael Vaughan was bold enough to choose batting on a pitch, which had already earned reputation of the bounciest of all the pitches of the World Cup.

However, he and the other opener Ian Bell decided to bring Test match tactics to frustrate Shaun Pollock and Charl Langevledt, who opened the attack in place of rested Ntini. Both the openers left more balls than actually played and laboured to score nine runs in the first eight overs.

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Story first published: Thursday, August 24, 2017, 15:53 [IST]
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