Duminy inspires huge South Africa win
JP Duminy celebrated his permanent move up to the number four batting position on Tuesday by scoring his maiden limited overs century to set up the Proteas' victory by 212 runs over Zimbabwe in the second ODI at SuperSport Park.
This victory gave the South African ODI squad a 2-0 series victory and put them in the right frame of mind for the visit of the England team which starts with the first of two Standard Bank International Pro20 encounters at the Bidvest Wanderers Stadium on Friday evening.
Man-of-the-match Duminy's previous best was 90 and he reached his century off only 82 balls with eight fours and two sixes before finishing on an unbeaten 111 (87 balls, nine fours and two sixes).
South Africa's total of 331/5 was their third highest against Zimbabwe while the winning margin was the second biggest against all opponents and only nine runs short of the massive 221 runs victory over the Netherlands at the 2007 ICC World Cup ? a match that was made famous by Herschelle Gibbs' record six sixes in a single over.
Although Duminy provided the mainstay of the innings, he was able to build on the excellent foundation laid by Graeme Smith and Jacques Kallis who put on 108 in 17.2 overs. Duminy and Mark Boucher provided a fitting finale with an unbroken sixth wicket stand of 58 off only 33 balls.
Zimbabwe had no answer to an aggressive bowling display by the Proteas aided by some brilliant fielding and only managed 119 runs before being bowled out inside 35 overs. Kallis made two superb diving efforts in the slips which enabled him to go past Gibbs as South Africa's leading catcher of all time in this format of the game.
AB de Villiers took an equally sharp chance at backward point as did Boucher behind the stumps.
Albie Morkel, looking sharper than he has done for some time, Charl Langeveldt and Roelof van der Merwe all took three wickets.
In spite of being well beaten in both matches Zimbabwe produced the leading runs scorer (Tatenda Taibu) and leading wicket taker (Ray Price) in the series with Taibu being named MTN player of the series.
In addition to Kallis, there were a number of statistical landmarks for Proteas' players during the series. Boucher has an overall total of 412 ODI dismissals but some of these were for the Africa XI and he has now completed more than 400 in ODI matches for South Africa. That total now stands at 403.
Dale Steyn took his 50th ODI wicket in the first match of the series.
To complete an excellent evening for South African cricket the South Africa A side beat England by four wickets in a Standard Bank Pro20 warm-up match for the tourists at Bloemfontein's OUTsurance Oval.
