South Africa open T20 World Cup campaign with Canada thrashing

AHMEDABAD: South Africa inflicted a 57-run thrashing on Canada in Ahmedabad on Monday, as the 2024 runners-up opened their latest T20 World Cup campaign with a dominant performance with bat and ball.

After Canada won the toss and elected to field, South Africa smashed 47 off the last three overs to pile up 213-4, the highest total so far in this year’s T20 World Cup.

David Miller hit an unbeaten 39 off 23 balls and Tristan Stubbs was not out 34 off 19 as they put on an unbroken stand of 75 in 6.1 overs at the end.

Canada’s Navneet Dhaliwal was the only top- order batsman to offer any resistance, falling for 64 in the final over as Canada were restricted to 156-8 in reply.

Lungi Ngidi did the bulk of the damage for South Africa, taking 4-31 from his four overs as their pace attack had Canada reeling at 45-4 during the powerplay.

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Ngidi was named player of the match and said the evening dew had helped his variation.

“It did have a bit of an impact. You could see once you bowled a touch fuller, it would sort of just slide on. The slow balls were still holding up a little bit,” he said.

“We knew that obviously our attack brings pace, but for me, I feel like the variations are always the ones that catch people out.”

Quinton de Kock and captain Aiden Markram got South Africa off to a flying start, putting on an opening stand of 70 in 6.5 overs.

De Kock was first to fall, for 25, bowled by a dipping off-spinner from Dilpreet Bajwa.

Markram sailed on and reached his fifty off 28 balls before falling for 59, caught in the deep after hitting 10 fours and a six.

Left-arm wrist-spinner Ansh Patel was the successful bowler and he enjoyed a fine spell, also removing Ryan Rickelton for a brisk 33 off 21 balls and Dewald Brevis for six.

Patel finished with 3-31 off his four overs after reducing South Africa from 125-1 to 138-4 before Miller and Stubbs took over.