Pretorius, Fortuin shine as South Africa routs Zimbabwe

In the ongoing T20I tri-series, South Africa defeated Zimbabwe by 43 runs in Windhoek on Tuesday (September 1), their second victory in three days.

Fueled by Lhuan-dre Pretorius’s career-best 94, they posted 185/7,but the innings trailed off slightly with a flurry of wickets towards the end. In a leg-side heavy knock, Pretorius first combined with Jordan Hermann to get them off to a brisk start. They raced to 68/0 after the first seven overs.

Pretorius warmed up by attacking Kundai Matigimu, a debutant, with a lot of leg-side whips and clips, strokes made possible by his unique downswing. He picked a boundary almost every over from that point on; his first six came in the ninth over, when he cleared Wellington Masakadza's square-leg boundary. He had scored fifty by the next over, and South Africa appeared to be on track for a total of over 200.

On 58, Zimbabwe were presented with a chance, but a misjudgment from short-third man led to a spilled catch.

As the innings progressed, Pretorius got even smarter with picking his shots. Whichever ball was not in his hitting zone towards the leg-side, he smartly caressed past point on the off, using the pace and angle off quicks well. Dewald Brevis game him good company: against Matigimu, he hit back-to-back no-look sixes and kept using the crease well against spinners. When he tried to get another six off Brad Evans, he fell in the 16th over.

In an effort to increase the amount of runs scored at the other end, the remaining batting collapsed. Cruising at 154/1, they lost six wickets for 31.

Zimbabwe’s response was positive to start with. Ben Curran struck a couple of fours in Kwena Maphaka’s opening over, while Brian Bennett greeted Prenelan Subrayen with a six. However, Curran left because he tried to take on the same bowler. The assault by Innocent Kaia continued, and by the third over, they were well on 33/1. But it went downhill thereafter.

Bjorn Fortuin, bringing himself in the attack, took out Bennett and Wesley Madhevere across three balls, the first one courtesy of a brilliant one-handed Pretorius catch. Due to that double-wicket debut, Zimbabwe could only manage 43/4 at the conclusion of the Powerplay, with Duan Jansen replacing Kaia.

Jansen then tore through them further, picking Ryan Burl and Tadiwanashe Marumani off back-to-back balls. Maphaka then picked up another in the ninth over to leave them struggling at 54/7. After that, Sikandar Raza put on a one-man show and hit Nqabayomzi Peter a lot. A six from Raza’s bat escaped the Windhoek ground, with the cameraperson doing well to capture it lying on the barren land outside the premises.

Raza kept trying to attack the shorter boundary after taking 22 runs off Peter's second over, but he was eventually stumped by Fortuin when he tried to repeat a six in the 14th over. No.11 Newman Nyamhuri did well to push them close to 150 with an entertaining knock, helped along by some sub-par fielding. But it was too little, too late.