ICC World Cup 2015: South Africa v Sri Lanka quarter-final - Stats of the match

South Africa broke their knockout jinx in style with a 9-wicket win over Sri Lanka in the World Cup quarter-final clash at Sydney today. While the Proteas pacers set the game up by accounting for both the openers, it was their spin duo of Imran Tahir and JP Duminy that ran through the batting line-up picking up 7 wickets between them to dismiss Lanka for just 133 runs on the board. In reply, Quinton de Kock’s unbeaten 57-ball 78 helped South Africa complete the chase in 18 overs.

#1 JP Duminy takes a hat-trick

South Africa’s JP Duminy picked up the 9th hat-trick in the history of ODI World Cup. Duminy got rid of Sri Lankan captain Angelo Mathews in the last ball of the 33rd over and then returned to send both Nuwan Kulasekara and Tharindu Kaushal packing in the 35th over. The 30-year-old is the first South African to pick up a hat-trick in a World Cup match.

Player	Team	Opposition	Venue	Year
Chetan Sharma	India	New Zealand	Nagpur	1987
Saqlain Mushtaq	Pakistan	Zimbabwe	The Oval	1999
Chaminda Vaas	Sri Lanka	Bangladesh	Pietermaritzburg	2003
Brett Lee	Australia	Kenya	Kingsmead	2003
Lasith Malinga	Sri Lanka	South Africa	Providence	2007
Kemar Roach	West Indies	Netherlands	Kotla	2011
Lasith Malinga	Sri Lanka	Kenya	Premadasa	2011
Steven Finn	England	Australia	MCG	2015
JP Duminy	South Africa	Sri Lanka	SCG	2015

#2 1st knockout win

Today’s win against Sri Lanka is South Africa’s first-ever knockout win in an ODI World Cup. The Proteas qualified for the knockouts 5 times in their previous 6 attempts, only to end up on the losing side in all their attempts.

World Cup	(Lost to) Opposition	Stage
1992	England	Semi-finals
1996	West Indies	Quarter-finals
1999	Australia	Semi-finals
2003	--	Group stage exit
2007	Australia	Semi-finals
2011	New Zealand	Quarter-finals

#3 Biggest win in knockouts

This is the biggest victory in World Cup knockouts in terms of the number of balls remaining. After restricting Sri Lanka to just 133 runs, South Africa, powered by Quinton de Kock's unbeaten 57-ball 78, closed the game in 18 overs.

The previous best was Australia’s hammering of Pakistan in the 1999 World Cup final, where the Kangaroos chased down their target in 20.1 overs.

#4 Zero Sixes

Not a single six was hit during the match today. This is the first such instance in this World Cup. This is also the first South African World Cup game since 1996 that has seen no sixes being hit.

#5 Most wickets by a South African in World Cup

With 15 wickets from 7 matches of the tournament, leg-spinner Imran Tahir is well on his way to become the South African player with most victims in a single edition of a World Cup. Tahir accounted for the likes of Lahiru Thirimanne, Mahela Jayawardene, Thisara Perera in today’s match – a performance that earned him the Man-of-the-Match award.

Only Lance Klusener and Allan Donald are ahead of him with 17 and 16 wickets respectively in the 1999 edition held in England.

#6 Debut in a knockout

Off-spinner Tharindu Kaushal, who Sri Lankan captain Angelo Mathews referred to as the ‘duplicate Murali’ in reference to his action being similar to that of the country’s legendary spinner Muttiah Muralitharan, became only the second player to make his debut in a World Cup knockout game.

The first to do so was Wayne Larkins of England who made his ODI debut during the 1979 World Cup semi-final match against New Zealand.

STAT ALERT: This was the first game of this World Cup not to contain a 6. And the first WC game featuring SA not to contain a 6 since 1996.

— Andy Zaltzman (@ZaltzCricket) March 18, 2015