New Zealand restrict South africa to 193 for 7

St George's, Grenada, Apr 14 (UNI) Medium pacer Craig McMillan struck three vital blows to strangle South Africa as New Zealand restricted the Proteas to 193 for 7 in the Super Eight league match of the cricket World Cup at National Stadium here today.

Putting behind their dismal showing against Sri Lanka, the Kiwis gave a disciplined performance which put the much vaunted South Africans on the back foot as they struggled for runs.

New Zealand bowlers justified their skipper's decision to field as they bowled with amazing accuracy and caught the Protea batsmen into their stranglehold which they never relaxed.

Under cloudy conditions, Kiwi skipper Stephen Fleming started with a huge advantage as he won the toss and invited South Africa to bat and Shane Bond did what his skipper expected of him -- strike early.

On a pitch where the ball slowed up off the track very early, Bond and pace partner James Franklin struck once each, and Daniel Vettori spun his magic to have South Africa struggling.

Protea captain Graeme Smith fell in Bond's very first over, a victim more of the pitch than devilish bowling -- though Bond did turn up the heat as he warmed up.

The last ball of the second over virtually stopped on the batsman and all Smith could do was scoop it up tamely to Jacob Oram in the covers.

Worse was to follow for the Proteas. Abraham de Villiers would have been brimming with confidence after his magic 146 against the West Indies earlier in the week but Franklin did him in with some clever bowling.

Having moved the ball away consistently, he brought one back into the opening batsman who did not even move as the ball zeroed into his pads. A centurion in only his last game had gone for a six-ball duck.

South Africa will have every reason to feel badly done by. This is not the sort of pitch one would expect for such a crucial game, and their first three batsmen were all victims of its lack of pace.

Jacques Kallis and Herschelle Gibbs were just stitching together a retrieval effort when the former -- in trying to push up the stagnating run rate -- gave Vettori the charge and scooped the ball towards mid-off where Bond completed the catch.

The third wicket had managed to put on 49 runs in 17 painful overs when Kallis (22, 54 balls, 1X4, 1X6) left leaving Gibbs and Ashwell Prince to try and repair the damage.

The two did their best in the given situation as they added 76 runs for the fourth wicket before Fleming brought in McMillan into attack in the 37th over and the medium pacer struck off his last ball, getting rid of dangerous Gibbs whom he clean bowled.

Playing a most uncharacteristic innings to save South Africa from sliding into the abyss, Gibbs scored 60 off 100 balls hitting a six and two boundaries.

Mcmillian then devastated the South Africans as he sent back Prince (37, 57 balls, 2x4) and Mark Boucher (16, 21 balls, 1x4). And the Proteas were tottering at 149 for 6 in 42.2 overs at that stage.

Shaun Pollock, along with Andrew Hall and Robin Peterson, managed to add 44 runs in the last 7.4 overs to take the total to 193.

The South African batsmen were virtually under a trance as Kiwi bowlers made them fight for every run.

In the first 25 overs, there were as many as six maidens and that shows how effective the bowlers were.

McMillian, whose previous best was 3 for 20, finished with 3 for 23 off five overs while Bond had two wickets for 26 runs off ten overs.

Spinner Jeetan Patel, though could not get a wicket, had a superb spell of 10-1-36-0.

Earlier, with the look of the pitch clearly dictating terms, both New Zealand and South Africa opted to include the spin option in their armouries. Fleming brought in off-spinner Patel to partner Vettori while Smith dropped Loots Bosman in favour of left-arm spinner Peterson.

UNI