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That would be all from our end today as South Africa complete the demolition job on Ireland. This is Dwaipayan Mukherjee, signing off with my hard working and dedicated co-commentator - Darpan Tikiya. See you soon!
Aiden Markram : It's nice. Been challenging times for us. You never take wins for granted, slightly testing conditions and they made us finish off well. What we saw at the top during the chase was really special. [on Rickelton] He's been our T20 player of the year two years on the bounce and people forget that I guess, he does it in his own unique way and really chuffed for him and for Reeza as well. [on bowling spin early] Got to a stage where gripping the ball gets tougher with sweaty hands, sometimes it might work, sometimes it doesn't. We are ecstatic to get the result and come back to repeat it again in a couple of days' time.
Paul Stirling : Yeah, we probably left a few runs out there while batting first. After the kind of start we got and how we progressed through the middle overs, we should have scored more - maybe around the 200 run mark. The scorecard says this is a big loss for us but plenty of new faces in our camp and we are excited to see how they come through the ranks, use this experience as a learning curve and show results for us in the times to come.
Ryan Rickelton: It was a good wicket, we knew there would be certain swing on offer as we did our training over here last night and that is what we had decided to do - see off what the movement could do initially and that was the plan - once we got through those first few overs - it was a great wicket. The century was never a thought in my mind. It was always getting the team closer to the target because we have such incredible players to follow us in our batting lineup.
South Africa (174 for 2 in 17.4 overs) defeat Ireland (171 for 8) by 8 wickets
Ryan Rickelton - 76 (48) | Reeza Hendricks - 51 (33) Craig Young - 1/25 | Mark Adair - 1/31
22:58 Local Time, 18:58 GMT, 00:28 IST: This is the highest successful run chase in 67 T20s played at this ground. The great work done by the openers ensured that Markram and Breetzke did not even have to go beyond second gear to get the job done. With his first run of the night, Reeza Hendricks reached 2000 runs for South Africa in this format. He is the 3rd batter from his country to bring up this landmark after David Miller and Quinton de Kock who are renowned players in the global circuit.
He celebrated this milestone with a match winning contribution for his side in this opening game of the series. Ryan Rickelton enjoyed a sublime run of form for MI Cape Town in the last season of SA20 where he was comfortably the highest run scorer of the tournament throughout the course of the competition and tonight was an opportunity for him to stamp his authority in the international arena as well. And didn't he do that in some style!
Reeza Hendricks was starved of the strike a bit in the initial overs - only facing 4 of the first 19 balls of the innings but then he unleashed 4 boundaries to the off side in his next 6 balls as the opening stand began taking command of the powerplay. 18 boundaries were hit by Ireland in their entire innings and South Africa picked up 10 boundaries within their first 6 overs. The cleanliness of the ball striking, the clarity of thought shown by the openers was truly breathtaking. The runs were scored at a heavy rate.
The umpire showed support for a caught behind appeal against Reeza Hendricks but the first wicket continued to elude Ireland as DRS overturned the decision in the last ball of the 7th over. Even before reaching his maiden half century, this became Ryan Rickelton's highest batting score wearing a South African T-shirt: he has played 5 Tests, 2 ODIs and this was his 7th T20I. He has been a class act tonight. Ireland tried everything but nothing really worked for them in this game. Things went from bad to worse for the European nation as Fionn Hand dished out huge full tosses as a result of the dew factor.
The 136 run opening stand - highest for South Africa in T20Is outside their home - entertained everyone at the Sheikh Zayed Stadium in Abu Dhabi. Going forward, an area of desperation for teams would be to win the toss and gain a significant advantage in the match by bowling first. It was a distinctive edge for Markram's openers while chasing in today's contest but all said and done, South Africa clearly were the better side tonight.
If Ireland think about where they lost this game - it could probably be in the last 16 balls of their innings where they did not hit even a single boundary. While South Africa were not great with their bowling today, they were able to pull things back really well at the end of the first half of this match. Presentations to follow shortly.
17.4 Mark Adair to Matthew Breetzke, FOUR TO FINISH! Adair goes for the yorker, ends up bowling a low full toss. Breetzke holds his shape and drives it through extra cover for an exquisite boundary. South Africa win by 8 wickets.
17.3 Mark Adair to Matthew Breetzke, full ball, at the off stump. The batter squirts it away to point. No runs.
17.3 Mark Adair to Matthew Breetzke, very full, outside off. In fact, outside the tram line. Breetzke let it go.
17.2 Mark Adair to Aiden Markram, slower ball. Full length, outside off. Markram waits for it to arrive before driving it away to sweeper cover off the front foot.
17.1 Mark Adair to Aiden Markram, FULL TOSS! Markram shapes up for the drive through the off-side but the ball hits him high on the bat and goes nowhere.
Mark Adair [3.0-0-25-1] is back into the attack
4 runs to win from 18 balls - The writing is on the wall now. This has been a convincing run chase.
17
overs
168/2score
1
0
4
1
6
0
runs
Matthew Breetzke*
15(12)
Aiden Markram
16(10)
Fionn Hand
0/38
16.6 Fionn Hand to Matthew Breetzke, ATTEMPTED YORKER AGAIN! The batter squirts away the low full toss towards the man at backward point.
16.5 Fionn Hand to Matthew Breetzke, SIX! POWERFUL STRIKE! Banged in short. The ball sits up nicely for Breetzke to open his shoulders and pull it over the midwicket boundary.
16.4 Fionn Hand to Aiden Markram, ATTEMPTED YORKER! The low full toss has been pushed towards long on.
16.3 Fionn Hand to Aiden Markram, FOUR! Uses the pace. Length ball, outside off. Markram waits for it and guides it towards the backward point boundary.
16.2 Fionn Hand to Aiden Markram, HIGH FULL TOSS! Markram looks to punch it over the off side and misses. He immediately turns to the square leg umpire who makes no signal.
16.1 Fionn Hand to Matthew Breetzke, low full toss outside off. The batter hits it towards sweeper cover.
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Matthew Breetzke
*
Fionn Hand
Video
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Sheikh Zayed Stadium, Abu Dhabi
