By IANS
Cape Town : South Africa held their nerve to beat England by 19 runs in their opening Group E game of the Twenty20 World Championships at the Newlands ground here Sunday night.
The home side posted a challenging 154 for eight in the stipulated 20 overs, thanks to a final flourish by Albie Morkel who smashed consecutive sixes off the final three balls of the 18th over and then managed to restrict England to 135 for seven to join New Zealand at the top of the group.
England and India now have some catching up to do in the remaining games of the group to stay in contention for the semi-final berths.
Albie Morkel also captured two crucial wickets in his two overs to snare the man of the match award.
Veteran all-rounder Shaun Pollock rocked England to the backfoot with a superb opening spell removing opener Luke Wright in the very first over. He also had a hand in the run out South African-born Kevin Pietersen (15) and then found the edge of the England skipper Paul Collingwood (0) to finish with dream bowling figures of 4-1-17-2.
Makhaya Ntini too bowled a tight line, giving away only 29 runs in his four overs and England were never able to recover as the required run rate kept climbing.
Opener Matt Prior (32) and Owais Shah (36) did raise some hopes with a half-century partnership off 43 balls for the fourth wicket but both fell before the England reached three figures.
Andrew Flintoff tried some big hitting as did Dimitri Mascarenhas but with Jeremy Snape struggling, it was too much for England, who move to Durban along with the other Group E teams for the rest of the group matches.
Earlier, South Africa’s innings stuttered and stumbled as batsmen tried to hit their out of trouble till Albie Morkel made his mark with 43 off 27 balls, hitting three fours and four sixes.
That was enough to see the hosts past the 150-mark and give their bowlers something to bowl at despite the evening dew that made fielding, especially catching, difficult.
Albie Morkel was dropped by Mascarenhas at deep mid-wicket and also hit the longest six of the tournament so far as one of the hits was measured to have travelled all of 106 metres, straight into the brewery adjoining the Newlands Stadium.
SCOREBOARD
South Africa:
Graeme Smith c Mascarenhas b Broad 19
Jean-Paul Duminy c Prior b Broad 0
Abraham Benjamin de Villiers c Prior b Flintoff 18
Justin Kemp c Prior b Mascarenhas 21
Mark Boucher c Pietersen b Schofield 29
Shaun Pollock c Prior b Anderson 0
Albie Morkel c Snape b Flintoff 43
Vernon Philander b Broad 6
Johan van der Wath not out 9
Extras (b2, w7) 9
Total (for 8 wickets off 20 overs) 154
Did not bat: Mornie Morkel, Makhaya Ntini
Fall of wickets: 1-8 (Duminy, 1.1), 2-33 (Smith, 4.1), 3-42 (de Villiers, 5.1) 4-91 (Boucher, 13.3), 5-91 (Pollock, 14.1), 6-96 (Kemp, 15.1), 7-133 (Philander, 18.1), 8-154 (A. Morkel, 19.6)
Bowling:
James Anderson 4-0-22-1 (2w)
Stuart Broad 4-0-37-3 (2w)
Andrew Flintoff 4-0-23-2 (1w)
Dimitri Mascarenhas 3-0-24-1
Chris Schofield 4-0-34-1 (1w)
Jeremy Snape 1-0-12-0
England:
Luke Wright c de Villiers b Pollock 0
Matt Prior c Philander b A. Morkel 32
Kevin Pietersen run out 15
Paul Collingwood c Kemp b Pollock 0
Owais Shah b A. Morkel 36
Andrew Flintoff b van der Wath 17
Jeremy Snape c de Viliers b M. Morkel 7
Dimitri Mascarenhas not out 15
Chris Schofield not out 6
Extras (lb5, w2) 7
Total (for 7 wickets off 20 overs) 135
Did not bat: Stuart Broad, James Anderson
Fall of wickets: 1-0 (Wright, 0.4), 2-24 (Pietersen 4.3), 3-27 (Collingwood, 4.5), 4-82 (Prior, 12.4) 5-98 (Shah, 14.3), 6-113 (Snape, 17.4), 7-120 (Flintoff, 18.3)
Bowling:
Shaun Pollock 4-1-17-2
Makhaya Ntini 4-0-29-0 (1w)
Morne Morkel 4-0-20-1
Johan van der Wath 4-0-30-1
Vernon Philander 2-0-22-0
Albie Morkel 2-0-12-2 (1w)
Result: South Africa win by 19 runs
Man of the Match: Albie Morkel (South Africa)
Toss: England won toss, elected to field
Umpires: Asad Rauf (Pakistan) and Tony Hill (New Zealand)
TV umpire: Ian Howell (South Africa)
Match referee: Ranjan Madugalle (Sri Lanka)
Reserve umpire: Marais Erasmus (South Africa)