South Africa smash Scotland out of World T20

The Scots were given a taste of international cricket when they were routed by South Africa by a whopping margin of 130 runs; the second-highest ever in the history of T20I cricket. With this, South Africa and New Zealand become the first two teams to enter the Super Eights stage, and Scotland will need to take a flight back home.

Scotland inserted the opposition in after they won the toss, but were immediately put to sword by the South African openers, Graeme Smith and Jacques Kallis. The duo added 87 runs for the first wicket before both departed in the same over within one run of each other; Majiq Haq the beneficiary. But, if the Scotts thought that they could creep into the game with these couple of wickets, A.B. de Villiers shut them out forever! Till Herschelle Gibbs was around, de Villiuers did try and rotate the strike while finding the odd boundary, and got to 23 in 15 balls, before exploding like a bomb. Sixes and fours flowed from his bat like there is no other shot available in the dictionary of cricket, and ended with an unbeaten 34-ball 79. At the other end, Albie Morkel hit a couple of them outside the park to get to 24 in 11 balls as South Africa scored 211/5 in their twenty overs.

Scotland, probably overawed by the occasion and the target, capitulated from the very beginning and lost wickets at regular intervals. Dale Steyn began the rot by getting rid of Ryan Watson in the very first over, while the next three fell within the first three overs of the game; Scotland 13/4! > Any recovery from here would have been academic and more from individual records’ perspective and that is what Kyle Coetzer achieved by smashing three sixes and getting to a 32-ball 42. Haq was the only other batsman to get to double figures, as Scotlan folded up for 81 in the 16th over.

De Villiers was the obvious choice for the man-of-the-match.