Positive Proteas in full cry in series levelling victory against West Indies

Gqeberha – The highly talked about positive brand of cricket under new coach, Rob Walter, was in full display as Heinrich Klaasen spearheaded the Proteas to 264/6 inside thirty overs.

Klaasen got off the mark with a single after Kyle Mayers found the edge of Aiden Markram’s bat in the eleventh over of South Africa’s run-chase.

His very next ball, a beautiful cover drive for four off the bowling of Odean Smith. From that shot, his intention was clear, he was not going to hold back from playing his strokes.

Together with David Miller, Klassen built a rapid 55-run partnership in 6.1 overs. A series of aggressively hit pull shots, and beautiful drives through the covers, took Klassen to a 54-ball century.

The Proteas batters looked to fight fire with fire throughout their innings. It was clear that the message from the coaching staff was to be positive by all means necessary.

Rassie van der Dussen persisted with the pull shot, backing himself and refusing to yield to a fierce opening spell from Alzarri Joseph. Despite his dismissal attempting to pull a Joseph short ball in East London, Van der Dussen didn’t write off the shot from his repertoire and eventually – as he lived by the sword, he died by the sword.

A brilliant unbeaten 119 off 61 balls by Heinrich Klaasen secures a 4-wicket win with 20.3 overs to spare for the Proteas.

The series is shared at 1-1.#SAvWI scorecard 👇

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Markram came in at four and played beautiful cover drives off Joseph and hit a monstrous six off the bowling of Jason Holder. He too, lost his wicket going for a booming drive outside the off-stump courtesy of a Kyle Mayers leg-cutter. Also in that instance, whether successful or not, a positive option was explored.

At one point, the Proteas were on 68/2 after 10 overs. Five overs later, they went to 101/4 and before the 30th over, they had successfully chased down 261 runs with the loss of two more wickets.

Marco Jansen too came out and showed off his big hitting skills. The tall all-rounder used his long reach and cleared the boundary with ease on his way to a solid 43 off 33 deliveries.

He also looked positive in his demise as he tried to follow up a boundary through the leg-side with a backfoot shot through the covers, only to find Shamarh Brooks stationed perfectly at backward point who took a simple catch.

The West Indies bowlers were taken apart by a determined Proteas batting line-up with Klaasen putting on a masterclass. Klaasen's unbeaten 119 included fifteen 4s and five 6s and he struck at an impressive rate of 195.08.

Earlier in the day, the plan to bowl first by Aiden Markram’s Proteas side looked to backfire as seamers just could not take any wickets. Brandon King and Mayers were back taking the attack to the Proteas bowlers just like they did at Buffalo Park.

But this time round, the West Indies were the West Indies of old, a mirror of what we saw from them at Buffalo Park, as they gave their wickets away after settling into their innings.

Nicholas Pooran got in and got out for 39, Jason Holder went out on 36 and Shai Hope too fell after facing 27-balls for his 17 runs.

Marco Jansen brought his A-game in Potchefstroom, a big improvement from his disappointing bowling performance in East London. Gerald Coetzee was his usual fierce self, while Bjorn Fortuin, Lungi Ngidi and Wayne Parnell got themselves on the wickets tally as well.

The highlight of South Africa’s bowling performance was Aiden Markram with his 1/30 in 10 overs. Markram bowled 34 dot balls and took the big wicket of Holder in the 44th over.

The Proteas definitely have a better understanding of where they stand and what the team is capable of achieving, a mission accomplished heading to the all-important Netherlands One-Day International series.

Scorecard:

West Indies: 260 (King 72, Pooran 39, Jansen 2/46, Fortuin 2/46)

South Africa: 264/6 (Klaasen 119*, Jansen 43, Joseph 3/50, Hosein 2/49)

@imongamagcwabe